


Into Your Hand

by iamnotanut



Series: The Return Home [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Hannibal Rising References, M/M, Revenge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:54:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 42,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24011632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamnotanut/pseuds/iamnotanut
Summary: The streets run red when Will and Hannibal reunite in Paris. Will can't be sure if his nightmares followed him there, or if they were simply waiting for his return with open arms.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: The Return Home [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1731751
Comments: 93
Kudos: 289





	1. A Changed Landscape

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel time! All of this started with a one-shot. I should have known better than to think I could just stop there.

The view from Hannibal’s window was a frequented point of study. Just as Monet’s had done with his haystacks, Hannibal was attempting to capture the nuanced attitudes of light as the unavoidable passage of time transformed this quiet Paris street. His aunt had gifted him with oil paints to challenge his instinctual inclination toward precision. Works done in pastel and ink had a clear stopping point or risked being overworked. Even watercolor could only sustain so much change and layering before breaking down. Once dried, the work could not be undone. An oil painting, however, was never finished.

He could recreate the street from memory with perilous perfection, but capturing the fiery death of this particular evening’s sunset required insight and feeling that Hannibal struggled to quantify. Amused at his own frustration, he abandoned the work for now and simply admired the view.

He shivered in spring’s lingering chill. He could hear couples gathering at the café across the way where small round tables lined the street. Their comings and goings provided Hannibal with ample subjects for figure drawing. The café would fill up with customers as the nightlights came on and their evening chatter would carry on until the sun came up, eventually transforming into the chirping of morning birds.

He returned to the moment—now. Light reflected off the glossy cobblestone and cast a warm glow down the curving line of packed building faces. There would never be another moment like this. He cleaned his brushes absently, contemplating the complexity of color. If he could one day capture a moment like this, his struggle would be well worth it.

The voices at the café went oddly quiet and he leaned out the window to see why.

The customers outside the café had been alarmed to silence. Disturbed, confused. They watched the street with caution.

A clumsy “ _Bonsoir_ ” echoed in response. The offending man fumbled in a wave before quickly walking on.

Curly locks were brushed behind his ears. His sleeves were folded and pushed past his elbows. The sculpted lines of his forearms, veins and tendons, deserved to be immortalized in marble. The tilt of his head, the line of his jaw, the hint of an unhappy frown in profile. They were the fractured pieces of Hannibal’s dreams brought together in one breathing thing.

Hannibal’s brush dropped to the floor with a clatter, and he lurched to his feet.

He could be dreaming now. His memory palace held many images that stepped free of their rooms in his weaker moments.

Hannibal leaned on the windowsill. The man’s shoes clapped on the pavement and echoed lightly down the street. He reacted to every sound and sight, like a ship battered by relentless waves of influence.

This man was tangible. Real.

Will.

Hannibal shoved away from the window and out the door, slamming it behind him. He flew down the narrow stairs and passed a neighbor without greeting them. Hannibal’s voice was knotted in his throat.

He burst into the street. Will disappeared at the curve of the road not before his silhouette was framed for an instant by blinding orange light. The image burned into Hannibal.

He chased around the corner, then slowed to an almost stop when he found Will again.

Will walked down the road with an open ease in his shoulders—unobserved, lost in his thoughts. Will clutched the well-worn logbook at his side. It was small in his hand. As it always had been. The familiar sight twisted in Hannibal’s chest. He couldn’t bring himself to close the distance. He couldn’t gather the strength to call out, and was as voiceless as he had been in his youth.

The street met the canal. Lured by the sound of water, Will trotted to it immediately. The compulsion made Will look very young, and warmth bloomed in Hannibal's chest.

Will peered at the others sitting by the canal and landed fondly on the students rapt in their studies.

A teacher? Hannibal watched that persona settle on Will like a comfortable coat. The glasses on his nose finally suited him. Will would be a challenging instructor, quiet and unreadable. Immune to flattery. With his unflinching honesty, Hannibal imagined Will would be merciless in his critiques.

Will lowered himself on a bench and was swallowed by his thoughts. There was a kind of glaze that smoothed Will’s edges when he slipped into himself. Even if horrors awaited him, Will’s first step into the maze of his mind was serene.

Hannibal couldn’t help himself now. He crossed the street. He got as close as he dared.

He had to see Will’s face.

He was tan now. It struck Hannibal that this was more Will’s natural color than the sick pallor he remembered. The summer heat brought a healthy flush to his cheeks. A breeze fluffed Will’s hair and Hannibal caught the unmistakable salt of the sea. His hands were calloused from working on engines and boats.

Hannibal seized at the sight of the curved scar over Will’s thumb. The thick line glowed white against his skin, jagged and unwavering. Time had done nothing to diminish it.

The evening bells rang and they both flinched. Hannibal turned his head away, hoping Will hadn’t noticed him. From the corner of his eye he watched Will fumble at his pocket. He checked the time on an antique pocket watch, suddenly very pale. Then Will dropped his head in his hands. The pages pressed to his temple fluttered in a breeze.

Folded in the book was a pristine letter.

Hannibal’s gut twisted with a leap of insight. Rage or elation or betrayal—Hannibal could not identify which emotion surged under his well-controlled exterior. This was his aunt’s doing, he was sure of it. Lady Murasaki’s composed face was clear in his mind, masking her private knowledge. How long had she known how to contact Will? How long had she kept it hidden from him?

It did not take Hannibal much effort to piece together Lady Murasaki’s motivations in contacting Will. That clarity was what tipped the scale for his conflicting feelings. As neatly as one seals and wraps a package, Hannibal separated himself from the looming, roiling rage and placed it on a high shelf in his mind. He would be sure to retrieve it later and deliver it to its intended recipient when circumstances would allow.

Finally, Will held the book in his hands. As he slowly opened it, Hannibal watched Will close the door to the outside world once more. Will poured over each page. His fingertips lingered above, running over invisible hills and valleys. It pained Will to look. He fought against the tenderness in his eyes and the smile tugging at his cheek.

Then all color drained from his face and he gripped the book hard enough to rip it in half. The emotions that fluttered through him were so brief and blended, they fell outside Hannibal’s comprehension.

Will stood abruptly, shoving the book in his pocket. He strode purposefully across the bridge while radiating regret and reluctance.

What has his aunt written? What had compelled Will to cross an ocean, if the images of that book brought so much grief and pain?

Hannibal fell onto the bench beside the emptiness where Will had been.

He watched Will enter the gallery. He wished he had a sketchbook with him. Nothing about the gallery had visibly changed, yet knowing Will was wandering somewhere within made the view burst with fullness and meaning.

He was only delaying the inevitable by waiting. He didn’t want to wait anymore.

Hannibal crossed the canal and entered the gallery. Instantly he spied Will scaling the stairs.

The curator was surprised to see him. When Hannibal was still a student, he was required to deliver his work after hours. The curator didn’t want his clients to know the drawings were done by a child. Now he refrained from entering the gallery while it was open to the public simply out of habit, those days long past.

Hannibal bowed his head with a polite smile and the curator nodded in return.

As he ascended the stairs, Hannibal became aware that he was drumming a finger against his leg. His heart was racing. There were no words circulating in his mind, no premeditated acts.

Only the happy anticipation of facing the unknown.

He spotted Will in the corner where his drawings were. He approached, maneuvering through the guests with grace and ease. He stopped at Will’s back, not close enough to alert him.

He took a hesitant breath and the bouquet of Will’s essence filled his lungs.

The salt of the ocean was strongest. Not just what might cling to him from his time in the boatyards, though there was the sting of engine oil. Will had sailed here. The letter was weeks old and it had likely been months since his aunt wrote it.

The mustiness of old paper clung to his clothes—further solidifying Hannibal’s assessment that he was some sort of teacher. He could imagine Will hiding away in the bays of libraries to avoid the persistent social attention of students and colleagues. A storm of dogs circled Will’s calves. Hannibal shook his head, fighting a grin. Animals were much better company for Will than his fellow man.

There was no trace of blood or gunpowder. The stagnation of war and death was only a memory now. Instead there was an anxious, summer sweat. Sweet and damp at Will’s lower back. It gathered at his neck, darkening his hairline and making it curl.

He took another breath, deeper, and found the cherished escape and unburdened silence of Will’s mind. Soft earth underfoot, forgiving and rich with life. Will carried the thick humidity of a deep forest, and the far off stream that brought a rush of cool air. Water on stone. It was stronger than it had been when Hannibal was a child. Nature at its most unsullied.

Movement jolted Hannibal out of his reverie.

Will reached for the wall, stretching out his hand.

Hannibal could feel the static gathering when Will was about to touch the painting of their first meeting, like his soul would be ripped from Hannibal the instant Will and his likeness connected.

“ _Ce n'est pas à vendre_.”

Hannibal’s own voice surprised him.

Will flinched, not looking behind him. He retracted his hand and bit out, “ _Je n'ai aucun intérêt à l'acheter_.”

Will pressed his glasses to his face, then turned to go.

Hannibal caught Will’s arm in his hand before he could think. The impulsive act shocked him.

He sighed, lest he laugh, “ _Vraiment?_ ” The last of his hesitance fell away, his control with it. “I could make an exception for the right buyer.”

Will stiffened under his hand. He turned slowly, reluctant to look up until the last moment. Those blue eyes, so like Will’s beloved sea, widened with instant recognition. Hannibal saw the same doubt in Will that he himself experienced. Was this real, or was it an echo of his hopeful mind?

The uncertain man trembled, brows twitching together.

Hannibal squeezed Will’s arm to ground them both.

“Hello, Will.”


	2. Do You Dream?

The gallery came into Hannibal’s focus, and therefore into Will’s. The older man took Hannibal by the arm and pulled him to the wall out of the way of the other guests.

They stood there gripping each other as if one had stumbled into the other’s path. They held on to keep from falling.

Will released first. He was overwhelmed by the sounds once more and moved his glasses out of the way to wipe his face. It was a nostalgic gesture.

Hannibal motioned to the stairs. “Will you follow me?”

He didn't wait for Will to acknowledge him. He carved a path through the crowd and down the stairs with Will close behind. He opened the door for Will to let him pass, and the man's cool scent followed. Hannibal blinked in the doorway before trailing after it.

Free of the oppressive crowd, Will straightened to his full height.

There were so many thoughts and words bubbling on Hannibal’s tongue, but he couldn’t trust that they wouldn’t send the man skittering away.

“Do you know me?”

Will jerked his eyes to Hannibal, swelling with that guilty ache. “Of course I do.” He grimaced, repeating, “Of course I know you.”

Will hid his scarred hand in his pocket, unsure of what to do with the other. He stretched and gripped it at his side awkwardly. Every little gesture was endearing to Hannibal, projecting Will’s inner conflict and distress. It was pleasant to see how little the man had changed.

Hannibal said nothing further, only smiling. He walked with Will across the bridge, back the way they came.

“Are you staying nearby?”

Will shook his head, “I’m in a hotel across the river. Near a church.”

Will still had a curl to his words, the leftover accent of his upbringing.

“There are a lot of churches in Paris, Will.”

Will grumbled, “It’s on… Rue Saint-Benoit. Near the—”

“Saint-Germain Church. I’m familiar with it.” Hannibal gave another charming smile, delighting in the ripple effect they had on Will. Displays of happiness had been hard to come by in the Lithuanian winter. Will was clearly not accustomed to them. “Have you been inside yet?”

Will shook his head.

“I highly recommend it. It’s one of the oldest churches in Paris.”

He let the conversation fizzle out. It would be easy for him to divert Will’s unease by discussing the history of the building and who of note was buried there. Instead, he let them sit for a time in Will’s buzzing quiet.

They left the canal behind, heading toward Hannibal’s residence. He put his hands in his pockets and Will's shoulders eventually eased in the silence. His eyes kept drifting to Hannibal, until he was openly staring.

“You didn’t expect to see me.”

“No.” Will gave a shaky sigh, “No, I didn’t.”

He let Will look him over, keeping his eyes on the road. Will took stock of Hannibal as he would a damaged boat engine until his gaze softened.

“You’re taller than me.”

“Not by a noticeable amount.”

“You look good. Healthy, I mean.”

“Were you worried about me?”

Will hardened instantly. He didn’t appreciate being teased and Hannibal made a note of it. One he was inclined to ignore.

“You're the same as I remember, aside from the glasses.” He stretched a finger to glance off the frames. “They aren’t prescription, are they. Why do you wear them?”

Will flinched. “I’m not fond of eye contact.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

On cue, Will locked eyes with him. Defiant and flushed.

They had reached the café outside his apartment. “Do you have any prior engagements, or can I encourage you to share a meal with me?”

Will shook his head.

“You don’t have prior engagements, or you don’t wish to join me?”

Will groaned and stopped in the street. He dropped his head into his palm and pushed the glasses fully into his hair.

“It’s—You’re different.”

Hannibal’s mask went carefully blank.

“Last time I saw you, you were—” The thought died in Will’s throat. Then a laugh burst out of him, “It’s bizarre to see how well-adjusted you are. You’ve changed so much I hardly know you.” The laughter faded. The eyes drilling into the ground were suddenly near tears. “God, I’m so relieved.”

Hannibal took the glasses before they fell off Will's head. He hesitated to touch him any more than that.

“Please sit, Will. We have time.”

—

Hannibal ordered food for them, but barely ate it himself. He wouldn’t allow his attention to be split. He watched Will gather behind his careful walls. He avoided looking at Hannibal as much as possible, focusing instead on the meal.

“Do you live in Paris now?”

“We moved here when I was accepted into medical school.”

Will smiled at that, enough to crinkle his eyes.

Chasing that warmth, Hannibal continued, “It was a work scholarship. I was the youngest they ever admitted.”

“Of course you were," Will chuckled. "Probably first in your class, too.”

“I was.”

They laughed together, and it echoed softly on the cobblestone. Will had thought of him, was glad to hear of his life now, but clearly he planned to credit their reunion to pure happenstance. They both knew that wasn't the case, and Hannibal refused to let the truth slip away.

“After I graduated, I was offered an internship at John Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore.”

Will froze over his plate.

“John Hopkins wanted to use my illustrations for a new anatomy text. It was very flattering.”

“You… didn’t accept the internship?”

“I wanted to,” he confessed.

Will finally looked at him then. There again was that raw ache that filled Will with a slew of emotions Hannibal couldn’t identify. He wished he could pull them apart and see the pieces for what they were.

Hannibal finally found his appetite. He arranged the selection on his fork before eating.

“Maybe I will, once I settle matters here in France.” He smiled at his plate, “Do you still have your house there?”

“It’s not in Baltimore, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m in Wolf Trap, Virginia,” Will said plainly. “Figure I better correct you now, before you go across the world to track me down.”

Hannibal inhaled his wine before indulging. “I’m sure I would have found you one way or another.”

They ate quietly while Will pondered. Finally he realized something didn’t match up.

“Who is Lady Murasaki?”

“My aunt by marriage.”

Will took a deep breath, gripping his fork. “I never met her.”

There were a number of implications to be drawn from Will’s tone and choice of words.

“Did she contact you?”

“She sent me a letter. I didn’t recognize the name, and the address was different from the chateau.”

 _The chateau_. “It was claimed by the state after my uncle passed.”

The shock flickered over Will, confirming Hannibal's assumption.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“You met him.”

“Yes.” Will sighed loudly, “When I delivered your letter.”

Will hadn't simply passed Hannibal's letter along. He had been there. Ten years ago. Hannibal blinked slowly and added that information to what he had already set aside for his aunt to discuss later.

“They didn’t tell you?” Will was transfixed on what Hannibal had thought was a harmless expression. The instant their eyes met, Will regretted asking and shook his head as if to banish the words.

“What did you think of my uncle?”

Will smiled brusquely, “He was… enthusiastic. I recognized him when I saw him. You look even more alike now.” Will's stare lingered on Hannibal like a touch. “You’re as tall as he was, at least. Though not as birdlike.”

A blunt if not apt description. Will noted Hannibal’s toned arms, no doubt seeing now the differences between them. His surgeons fingers were stronger than his uncle’s. Hannibal painted with a scalpel as well as his uncle did the brush.

“He made a space for me in his studio when I was a child,” Hannibal said. “He told me when I thought I might explode I should paint it instead. He was an unusual man.”

“Even with a stranger, he was passionate and generous. He loved you. He wrote to me, after he found you.” That drifted into undesirable territory for Will. In his effort to avoid it, another truth came tumbling out. “Then—” as if the two events hadn’t been separated by a decade, “—your aunt told me about the gallery. I thought… I thought something might be wrong.”

Hannibal weighed the consequences of honesty. His rational mind listed the risks, but the fluttering uncertainty that Will stirred in him was much more captivating.

“I hadn’t painted you in some time. That may have prompted her concern.”

Will’s ears went pink, but his gruff scowl remained. “Why?”

“I would draw you often when I had nightmares. Especially when I first arrived at the chateau.”

He shook his head, confused, “I thought they were gone. They stopped.”

When Mischa’s screams split the peace of Hannibal’s dreams, his aunt and uncle were as kind and patient as they knew how to be. But even as they cooed words of comfort they stank of fear. They flinched at the threat of his teeth and claws.

Hannibal eased against his chair and absorbed the man across from him. Unlike his aunt and uncle, Will bore Hannibal's anger and sorrow with calm acceptance. With knowing. Will held him in the dark, but not to save him from it. How could he? Will had met his devil and recognized himself.

That thought brought Hannibal greater comfort than a lavish home and loving guardians ever could.

“They did fade eventually, as children’s nightmares often do.”

In an instant, Will’s darkened eyes pierced Hannibal’s façade. Hannibal saw himself there as clearly as he would in a mirror, where he belonged.

“You’re nightmares weren’t about monsters hiding under your bed, Hannibal.”

Hannibal drank the last of his glass, licking his bottom lip to chase the taste.

“No. They were not.”

Will sat rigid in his chair, face stripped of emotion. His mind clattered and dashed itself against its cage, frantic to reach its revelation.

The setting around them dissolved, leaving them seated across the campfire once more. Will’s crystal blue eyes could not be more misplaced in the Lithuanian winter. Hannibal had never seen the Gulf himself, but he imagined Will’s blue could only be found in tropical waters. They bore heat and relentless storms.

There was a ting of fear in Hannibal’s gut, and a rush along with it. He was exposed here. Seen.

Will could see him.

“Do you dream, Will?”

Will didn’t answer.

“You remind me of those predators they keep in enclosures. They serve their tour with the circus, and are sold to a zoo where they can die on display.” Hannibal watched Will through the fire. “You were valued for your violence and your instinct. They let you hunt and kill enough that you could almost convince yourself you were free. You could stretch your legs, sharpen your claws. What happened when they put you in the cage again?”

Horror and rage battled in the sea of Will’s eyes.

“When you returned to civilized life, did others chain you up, or did you do it yourself? You could still teach the young cubs how to hunt from the safety of your enclosure.” Will twitched, all but confirming Hannibal’s deduction. “You’ve polished the years you spent killing men and present them to the next generation as a lesson learned.”

Across the lapping flames, Will’s shadow grew behind him and stretched across the snow, writhing like a great beast. The wood shifted and sent up a flare of sparks.

“Tyger Tyger, burning bright.” The quote slipped out before Hannibal could catch it. He stared at the frozen ground, just as solid in his memory palace as reality. A whispered breath escaped, "Or did they dare to cage the Lamb?"

Will gripped the table and the café returned. A cyclist whizzed by them on the street where they sat. Will couldn’t find the words to answer Hannibal, but his eyes glowed with the lingering fire. That was enough.

Their food finished, Hannibal gestured for the waiter. He paid before Will could intervene.

When they stood, Will stepped closer to him. Even when shaken and reluctant, Will was drawn in.

“I’ll walk you home.”

Hannibal pointed above to his window. “You already have.” Will blinked, glancing around at the street. “I spotted you on your way to the gallery.” They stared up at the window in tandem and fell into a strange symmetry. “If I hadn’t approached you, would you have come to find me?”

Will took a deep breath. He shoved a hand in his pocket to hold the book and ground himself.

No. Will had intended to find the painting, if only to get his reassurances, then run away before the past could sink its teeth into him.

“Why did your aunt write to me?”

“Perhaps she hoped you would soothe my nightmares.”

The furrow of Will’s brow deepened.

Hannibal inclined his head, offering a reprieve, “My old medical school is very close to Saint-Germain. I could show you.”

“I was going to get a taxi.”

“You would let this lovely weather go to waste?”

Will tried and failed to hide his grin.

“It’s a long walk, Hannibal.”

“I know.”


	3. Step by Step, Note by Note

They strolled down the glowing Paris streets and crossed the Seine. Will’s wide and marveling gaze brought new life to the city. Hannibal hadn’t realized how much he had taken the view for granted.

“How’d you know I’m a teacher? Didn’t realize I was wearing a sign.”

“It was an educated guess.”

Will didn’t believe him.

Hannibal wasn’t sure if it was fatigue that had taken away Will’s edge, but his shoulders were soft. He floated on the pavement and radiated a dangerous calm. Hannibal had only seen glimpses of this in his youth, and grasped at once that this was Will’s unobserved self. There was no Jack Crawford here to command him, no fellow soldiers or witnesses to fear him. There was no one here to perform for.

Will was unaware of this change, and Hannibal had no desire to bring it to his attention. He would savor this side of Will while it lasted.

Hannibal leaned into Will’s space and took a quiet inhale at his neck. He watched Will’s full-body shiver.

“There’s a faint scent of books. And the staleness of an institution.”

Will glared but didn’t reproach him.

“That’s not much to go on.”

“When you observed the students at the canal, you took on a paternal air. I don’t imagine you have any children that age. If you’re not a father, you’re a mentor. That was my assumption at least, which you confirmed.” He pursed his lips, considering, “It suits you.”

“How long were you watching exactly?”

Hannibal stared off in a happy daze as he let those memories play out. Will’s silhouette in the setting sunlight, the breeze in his hair, his reverent focus on the pages of the logbook. Hannibal could feel Will's radiating shame.

“I am not to blame for your lack of awareness, Will.”

Embarrassment made Will rude. He hissed back, “What else do you smell on me?”

“The sea.”

Will’s ready defenses shattered. His mouth opened on words that wouldn’t come. Hannibal could always rely on the sea to break Will open. There were promises between them that neither had forgotten. One failed promise bled into another until Will couldn’t hide the regret that knotted in his gut.

If Will was going to be chained by guilt, Hannibal would much prefer to be the cause and the cure.

He brushed his hand over Will’s curls, pushing them behind his ear. He tilled through Will’s hair, resting finally on the back of his neck. Hannibal hadn’t realized how cold he was until Will’s skin burned against him.

Hannibal gripped the tense muscles at his neck and Will’s eyes rolled closed. Hannibal surged with a sudden hunger and his hand dropped from Will, scalded.

Hiding his slip of control, Hannibal’s voice was light. “What do you teach, Will?”

Will grasped eagerly at the offered escape. Hannibal could see the thrumming pulse in his neck.

“Forensic science and psychoanalysis at the FBI Academy,” he said. “War doesn’t bring peace, despite what we’re told. When a whole generation of men are conditioned to suspend their morality, there are consequences.”

“An inspector from the Sûreté once told me something similar. War crimes don’t end with the war.”

“It’s hard to unlearn that kind of violence.”

“And here I thought you’d be somewhere in a marina fixing boat motors.”

He quoted Hannibal sharply. “Someone has to teach the cubs to hunt.” Then he said, “There’s a lot of bullshit around psychoanalysis at the Bureau. They don’t think it’s necessary, and the sad, dull truth is most violent crimes can be reduced to male penetrative control issues. I’d rather encourage my students to adopt a higher level of scrutiny.”

“Crimes of passion often have very little forethought. Knife wounds, gunshots, battery. It’s all very straightforward. However, more complicated motivations do exist. It would be neglectful to only take forensic evidence into account.”

Will pinned Hannibal in a quick study. “How exactly did you make your acquaintance in the Sûreté?”

“I met Inspector Popil not long after my uncle’s death. He followed my progress through medical school. He’s been very supportive, in his own way, and I consult on his cases from time to time to return the courtesy. My experience in critical care and trauma surgery has proven very useful to him.”

“I’m curious why an inspector would become so involved in your life. Or why you would let him.”

“I intrigue him.” Hannibal added with deliberate civility, “He is also courting my aunt.”

Taking from Hannibal’s tone, Will gave a wry smile. “For how long?”

“It’s been a slow and tiring process,” he confessed. “He hasn’t been so forward as to warrant rejection, and he is amusing enough for my aunt to tolerate him.”

“She could also like him.”

Hannibal scoffed, “My uncle was a good match for her. He had an appreciation for her ephemeral nature and autonomy. He did not wish to cage her.”

“And the inspector does? The more you talk about her, the more mythical she sounds.”

“You should come to dinner with us and see for yourself.”

“Is that an invitation?”

Hannibal hummed, “I look forward to hearing your impression of her.”

They arrived at the Rue de l'École de Médecine. The columns of his old university framed them where they stood at the entrance. The gate was locked.

“We’re a little late for the tour.”

Hannibal jingled a set of keys in his hand.

“Hannibal.”

“Not tonight.” He pointed to the tall windows of the laboratory, “I spent much of my spare time preparing bodies for anatomy class.”

“How charming.”

Hannibal had always loved the eerie green glow that came from the cadaver tank as if the dead feared being left in the dark.

“I’ll show you another time.”

The last stretch of their walk was woefully short. They stopped across the street from Will's hotel, not yet crossing. Will looked forlorn as he stared at the bright building—Hannibal wasn’t imagining it.

Hannibal stepped closer until their shoulders bumped. Will accepted the line of contact and was tired enough to relax into it. His heat soaked into Hannibal, a balm for the aching cold.

“How long will you be staying?”

“I don’t know… The academy is on break, but I didn’t really tell them I was leaving. They wanted me for a lecture tour this summer.”

“They can’t get to you here.”

“I didn’t run away, if that’s what you’re implying. My work is important,” he said, half convincing himself. “I’ll have to go back eventually.”

Like the inhale and cue of a conductor signaling the orchestra, the start of something swelled in Hannibal's breast.

“Perhaps you could speak before the Sûreté,” Hannibal said, outside himself. “I am sure Inspector Popil would be happy to have you.”

Will nodded, distracted by the looming hotel.

Meanwhile, Hannibal’s mind was splitting down a multitude of avenues and unfolding into a composition of unknown medium. It would not be born through paint or ink. Not music. Something thicker. Hannibal shut his eyes, fighting the sudden torrent.

“Hannibal?” Will clutched his shoulder. “Are you alright?”

He swallowed as an image he had locked away came floating to the surface. He knew instantly that it would be the perfect overture. His mask had dropped, leaving him blank and overcome. Hannibal touched under his eye and found tears.

Before he could speak, he was seized tightly in Will’s embrace. Hannibal’s hands hung like stone at his sides. He didn’t know what would happen if he moved them. He _didn’t know_.

When he was a student, he had cut open a man’s skull for the anatomy class. He remembered resting his gloved hand on the gray folds. It was a time when he labored obsessively over memory and the dark spaces of the mind. He wished that by touch he could read a man’s dreams, that by force of will he could explore his own.

He wanted to tangle in his fingers and never let go.

Will cradled his head, hiding Hannibal’s face in his shoulder. He pet his hair as he did when Hannibal was a child. Hannibal took a deep breath and soothed himself with the salt and cool forest beneath Will’s skin. He shook his head into Will’s neck, feeling the mirth rising.

When he leaned away, Will still held him loosely. The set of Will’s mouth gave nothing away but—being this close—Will couldn’t hope to hide the fascinating war waging in his eyes. His openness was an invitation to Hannibal. Intimate and pliant. Tormented and raw. Hannibal couldn't begin to understand, yet understood it completely.

He slid his hands up Will’s ribs as he took another settling breath. Will shuddered, but bore down with a grimace to hide it.

“Was it good to see me, Will?”

Will couldn’t answer, but Hannibal didn’t need him to.

He untangled from Will and left the man to grip the empty air. Will attempted a smile.

“Goodnight, Hannibal.”

Then he trudged across the street to disappear into the hotel. Hannibal planted his hands in his pockets and watched warmly after.

He hadn’t felt such a compelling call to action in years. Ten, to be exact.

It was time to stir the pot.

He whispered into the empty street, “Goodnight, Will.”


	4. Those Who Can't Do, Teach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I missed writing Will! He's so precious and unstable.

A stark image lit up the large projector screen. Obscured in forest brush was a pile of bloodless limbs. The blank stare of a severed head glistened in the flash of the camera.

Will looked out over the claustrophobic auditorium and decided he was more comfortable making eye contact with the blown up visage of death and decay.

“The victims are found decapitated and dismembered, with clear signs of sexual assault. There are variances. Some victims are strangled, some are shot. The bodies are found scattered in ravines, on hiking trails, and a few secluded highways. There is no intentional display of the victims; he has no regard for how they are found. Looking at this lump of evidence and the degree to which each victim is mutilated, it is easy to assume our killer is a sexual sadist. He uses these women, tortures them, and dumps them. He’s sick, demented. He hates women. We’d be looking for someone with a history of sexual violence, and most certainly a criminal record of some kind. You’d spot someone this disturbed on the street if you saw him.

“There’s no way someone capable of this kind of violence would be able to hide who he is. If that's true, how has this killer managed to do _this_ to half a dozen women—that we know of—without getting caught? ” He paused as if someone might be bold enough to interrupt. “The answer is: he is not a sexual sadist.”

The psychologists and other intellectuals stopped their scribbling. They beamed at Will with morbid curiosity. Meanwhile, a few officers puffed in disbelief. One group saw the killer as a specimen to dissect, the other saw a disease to be purged.

“If we break down the components of the killer’s crimes into pre- and post-offence behavior, we get a very different story. Our victims didn’t die of mutilation. They died of gunshot wounds. They died of strangulation. The dismemberment, manipulation, and assault all occurred postmortem. There are minimal defensive wounds on the victims, if any. What does that tell us?

“The order of events is what’s important. We need to enter the killer’s mindset and understand his fantasy. Put yourself in the killer’s place.”

Will changed the slide to a close up of the severed head. There was distinct bruising on her neck. Will’s fingers tingled. Hannibal's slender neck flashed in his thoughts. Fingers pressed into his skin like clay.

“My victim trusts me. I am disarming and helpful. Friendly. She won’t see it coming when I move to kill her. She won’t have time to fight back. I am quick to choke the life out of her because I don’t want to cause her unnecessary pain. I’m not torturing these women. I do not need them alive to fulfill my fantasy. I want control. I want to release the impulses that have been stifled all my life.

“The behavioral evidence we apply to this killer’s criminal profile will narrow our search. It’s how we’ll find him. Who are these women to me, and how did they catch my eye? What kind of killer am I? What kind of man?”

Will’s thoughts flashed to his own victims. Beaten to death in the snow, mutilated and stripped of flesh.

“What is my design?”

There was an extremely inappropriate round of applause at the end of Will's lecture, primarily from the intellectuals. Meanwhile, the officers slipped away grumbling. Doctors swarmed him to shake his hand and pelt him with questions. Fortunately for Will his rusty French and off-putting attitude kept them from lingering, or going so far as to invite him out for drinks.

The auditorium was gradually emptied until one man remained, still in his seat. Inspector Popil wore a neat suit. He was watching with a sharp stare.

“Thank you for having me, Inspector. And for providing the slides. I was surprised you found them on such short notice.”

Popil broke from his concentration and stepped down to meet Will. “They’re from my personal collection. I make a point to read everything I can on FBI profiling methods,” he said. “I never thought I’d hear a lecture on using instinct to narrow down an investigation.”

“It’s not instinct, as much as intuition developed from time in the field. We naturally come to recognize patterns of behavior. The more cases we see, the better our understanding. Documenting these patterns and the evidence that supports them can help predict future violence.”

“I admit that I rely on my gut as much as I do the evidence.”

“That’s not uncommon for experienced officers.”

“I value forensic psychology, but I’m not sure that’s what you’re doing.”

Will paused over his papers before gathering them. “What is it I’m doing?”

Popil loomed in the exit. “ _What kind of killer am I?_ ”

Will smiled tightly. He walked to the projector and shut it off. The room went black, save for the strip of light coming from the hallway. Will gathered the slides and met Popil at the door.

“It’s a thought exercise. I use it with all my students.”

“You’re asking us to see through the eyes of a murderer in order to catch him. Is that what you do, professor?”

Will knew he shouldn’t instigate anything with Popil. He was nothing like Jack Crawford. Jack was willing to ignore the public standard of morality in favor of his own personal sense of justice. Popil would rather watch the whole world burn than bend the law. He was a soldier of the people. He’d see Will in the chair—or under the guillotine, rather—if he caught a whiff of blood on him. Anyone with a moral code that rigid was hiding something.

Popil gave off the faint odor of hypocrisy and it made Will’s skin prickle.

“Everyone has thought about killing someone one way or another. Be it at our own hands or the hands of God.” Will extended the case of slides with thinly veiled venom. “We are all capable of violence.”

Will expected Popil to bite back, but the man only smiled. Even with the glint of suspicion, Popil was intrigued. As if he had found a new puzzle to solve. Will suddenly understood why Hannibal liked him.

“Some more than others.” He took the slides and walked into the hall. “It’s a very unique approach. I would be interested in getting your opinion on a few of my cases.”

“Unfortunately, I have plans for dinner.”

Popil’s ears went pink.

“With Lady Murasaki?”

Will pretended not to notice. “And her nephew, yes.”

“Are you close with Hannibal?”

Will kept his tone indifferent, “I met him years ago when he was a child, but a lot can happen in that time.”

Popil started tapping his finger. His inner focus had shifted to another puzzle in his mind, haunting and unsolved.

“Indeed it can,” he finally said. “I promise not to take up much of your time, Monsieur. If you will, I have something I’d like you to see.”

—

“Can someone lie on a polygraph test, professor?”

“It’s possible. You know as well as I do that polygraphs aren’t lie detectors. The test itself induces stress signals. A person could be denying a false accusation, or scrambling not to get caught. The polygraph wouldn’t know the difference.”

Popil produced a large lidded box from the bowels of his office. He opened it on his desk and handed Will a roll of paper.

“Is it possible to give no reaction at all?”

Will pondered that with a crease in his brow. “It would require a considerable amount of self-control, and a guiltless conscience.”

Will unspooled the paper tape from an old polygraph. The examiner had indicated when questions were asked, but there were no distinctive spikes in the inked lines. Blood pressure, pulse, respiration—all steady.

“Could it have been an error with the machine?”

Popil shook his head. “We were interviewing suspects all day, before and after this one.” He laid photographs out on the desk. “The victim was sliced multiple times with a long, sharp blade, then decapitated. There were defensive wounds on his hands.”

Leafing through the photos, Will stopped on the bruised hands and bloody fingernails, “Not from his attacker.”

“We identified the body from a tattoo. Paul Momund was a Vichy, and much hated. He shipped Jews from Orléans. He was in a bar fight a few days before his death where he knocked the teeth from a man and a girl. We interviewed all of his recent opponents. The list was extensive, to say the least.”

“And the head?”

Popil produced the photo. “It was found with _Boche_ printed on the forehead.”

Will was already shaking his head as he spat out, “This wasn’t revenge for wartime transgressions. It was personal. Whoever killed this man thought he was a pig, and deserved to be slaughtered like one.”

“Momund was a butcher.”

Will laughed cruelly, “How poetic.” He lifted the ribbon of paper, “This is your killer. Were you present during this interview?”

Popil nodded slowly, “Yes, but we released him.”

“Was your _gut_ not working, Inspector?”

“We had no solid evidence against him. Nothing.” Popil tapped on the picture of the head, “Momund’s head was mounted on a pole outside the post office across from the station. During our interview with the suspect.”

“That absolves him of nothing.” Will added with a smug smile, “The killer wasn’t concerned with getting caught in the first place. He had an accomplice who knew what he had done and cared enough to cover for him. I imagine interest in the butcher died down when people assumed the Resistance killed him.”

Popil nodded solemnly and took a settling breath. He lifted the file into his hands, as if it would suddenly present a different answer he had not yet seen.

“Look through his eyes, professor. What kind of killer is he? Is he likely to kill again?”

Will brushed over the pictures before letting his eyes fall closed. The pendulum thrummed in his mind, wiping more of himself away with each stroke. Will waited in the silent dark until the swinging stopped.

When he opened his eyes, the butcher was standing before him. He was saying something, spewing filth that stained the air. Will’s stomach rolled with disgust, but knew it was a temporary discomfort he would soon be rid of.

Will circled the man as a predator would.

“I stalked you…” He swung—a flash of metal—leaving behind the thick red line across the butcher’s stomach. “Sliced you…” Will swung again. The man scrambled to hold in the blood. “I took my time.” Again. More beautiful lines. “I thought to use the butcher’s knife, but it was dull. I wanted something sharper. I wanted it clean.” Even if the outside was caked in grime, the inside was shining and pure. Clean and red. “You cut like butter, not a nick in the blade.”

The butcher collapsed over a stump. Blood spattered from his mouth as he screamed in agony. It was the last filth he would ever spill.

“You are nothing. You are meat.”

Will brought down a heavy stroke and the head thumped in the grass. Will stood above it, specked with red. Smiling.

Will blinked into himself again. He glanced shakily at the inspector whose eyes were popped wide.

Will hid behind his glasses. “He’s supremely intelligent, and a sadist.” He indicated the polygraph, “He has no morality, not one of any standard definition. His world is divided into what does and doesn’t amuse him. If he does kill again, it won’t be like this. And he won’t leave evidence, not unless he wants to.”

With his eyes unclouded, Will peered into Inspector Popil. He could see the inspector’s deep inner conflict. Popil knew this killer was guilty, but was still hesitant to accuse him. Reluctant, even.

“You know him.”

Popil gave a bitter grin.

“So do you.”


	5. What's for Dinner?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while! Your reward for waiting is a longer chapter! Another one is soon to follow.

Inspector Popil insisted he drive Will to Lady Murasaki’s apartment. He stood fussing with his hat and coat before knocking. As if set on a dial, his nervous energy ticked up and up by the second. Will had the strange feeling that they were being intentionally ignored. Popil knocked again.

It was Hannibal that opened the door with a polite smile and a hint of mischief in his dark eyes.

“Inspector. I’m sorry, were you waiting?”

Popil grumbled, shaking his head. Of course not. He had been happy to wait—tapping his toe and gritting his teeth all the while.

Hannibal softened at the sight of Will. In moments like these, it became clear to Will how false the polite mask really was.

He gestured inside, not leaving Will’s gaze. “Please come in.”

Hannibal was in a grey suit, natural and professional, with a pale blue shirt. As was usual for Hannibal, the navy tie and pocket square were well-matched. He embodied all that a respectable young doctor ought to be, and the persona was as much of a disguise as his smile. Everything he did was translated through that image and resulted in a flawless veneer of human courtesy.

He walked them into the sitting room with a hand casually pushed in his pocket, accenting all the proper lines of his suit and pants. He was the picture from a magazine sprung to life.

“How was the lecture?”

“Very informative,” Popil said promptly. “Thank you for introducing us.”

“Not at all.” Hannibal brushed something from the furniture before resting his hand.

This poised man wasn’t what Will saw when he closed his eyes and thought of Hannibal. What had stuck was the haphazardly tucked shirt and thin suspenders from their reunion. Dusty blond hair—now very neatly combed in place—had been set loose by wind and exertion. Breathless and disheveled. Eyes gleaming with surprise he might have hidden from anyone else. But Will saw so much. His hesitation, his cunning. Evening shadows on his angular jaw. Narrow lips open in a smile. The smudge of paint on the shirt hanging from broad shoulders.

That image could not be further from the young surgeon before him now. It could not be further from the starving, shivering boy in the woods.

Which one was Hannibal?

All of them. None of them.

The artist, the doctor, the devil.

Hannibal continued, “When Will told me he had been working at the FBI’s Academy, I knew you had to meet.”

“I am eager to apply his methods to future investigations.”

Hannibal beamed with secondhand pride. “I’m sure you are.”

There was no sign of discomfort or defensiveness from Hannibal when speaking with the inspector who had once accused him of murder. On the contrary, Will would say they were downright chummy with each other.

Meanwhile, Will could still feel the weight of Hannibal’s blade in his hand and the tug of the skin as he sliced through Paul Momund’s fatty flesh. The spray of blood was still hot on Will’s cheek. Yet here they all were chatting like it hadn’t happened. Will was just glad the men hadn’t included him in the conversation thus far.

Popil’s nerves didn’t settle even after coming inside. He paced, distracted, and regarded Hannibal with cautious admiration. It wasn’t out of suspicion, but in an effort to protect his pride. Clearly Popil’s ego had been pricked before.

“Don’t let the inspector take advantage of you, Will. He requested my input for a single case—just one, he said—and now I find myself making regular stops at the commissariat.” He ended in a friendly grin. “Inspector Popil was once bold enough to pull me from my shift at the hospital.”

Popil laughed aloud, a sound Will never thought he’d hear from the uptight inspector.

“You won’t let me forget that, will you?”

“I only mean to prepare Will for what’s to come should you call on him,” Hannibal said.

Popil was genuinely charmed by Hannibal. He didn’t want Hannibal to be a killer. What happened to the butcher was a horrible mistake made by a reckless and passionate young man.

When the inspector started to remove his coat, Hannibal politely said, “I’m afraid we don’t have a setting prepared for you, Inspector. I can pull something together if you’d care to stay.”

And there it was. The perfect needle to puncture his ego.

“No.” Popil fixed his collar in place, as if that had been his intention all along. “Thank you, Hannibal. I won’t trouble you.”

“We must have you for dinner very soon.”

Hiding the sting of broken expectations, Popil simply nodded in answer. Hannibal’s smile was perfectly innocent to the inspector, but Will saw the satisfaction beneath it.

“I would be delighted. I’ll let your aunt name the day.”

Will realized Popil was fishing for Lady Murasaki as if she were in earshot. Will almost laughed at him, but then there was movement on the terrace.

Sure enough, there she was.

Obscured by heavy draperies and the tall glass doors, the lady stood among her flowering plants. Her hair was glossy, raven black, and coiled up to expose her slender neck and shoulders. She was aware the men were watching her, but remained intent on completing her task. There was a faint clip of shears and she stepped into view. In the lady’s gloved hand she held a spindly cut of baby’s breath. Half of the tiny white blooms had not opened, leaving it strangely misshapen. The small shears glinted silver in her expert grip.

Popil frowned in a failed effort to stifle the blush on his cheeks.

She gracefully swept into the sitting room. The lady did not smile, but her expression did lift.

“Good evening, Inspector Popil.”

The inspector dipped his head and removed his hat.

“And you must be Monsieur Graham.”

Will didn’t like being called professor and he certainly didn’t like being called “Monsieur Graham”. He scrunched his mouth, unsure of what expression to greet her with.

Drawn like a spider to the fly, Lady Murasaki approached. With her came a gentle fresh fragrance. Smooth petals and fresh orange, squeezed in her hands—held to her lips. She was waiting to observe its impact on Will—or the lack of one, in his case. There was a calculated delicacy in her actions that unsettled him.

Will refused to look at her and instead kept his eyes to the side where Hannibal stood. The man was practically glowing. He prompted Will to speak with a jut of the head.

“Will,” he scrambled. “Please call me Will.” He grimaced at the glare Popil gave him. As usual, Will didn’t know the rules of polite society until he grated against them. Apparently first names were out. Too late to take it back. “I’m glad to finally meet you in person. Hannibal refuses to tell me anything substantial about you.”

The lady gave him a genuine smile then. Like the tug of puppet strings, Popil visibly tensed.

“We have that in common. Though, I’ve seen your face enough I could almost believe I know you.”

Will flushed, and the inspector discharged a particular flavor of hostility. All the while, Hannibal stood a safe distance away looking terribly amused. Polite society be damned, Will broke from them and trudged to the doors of the terrace. He pushed his glassed firmly on his face.

Lady Murasaki shifted focus to the neglected Popil to cover for Will’s rude display.

“Thank you for escorting him here, Inspector.”

The man’s ire instantly dissipated. “I was happy to.”

“It’s always a pleasure to see you,” she said. “You’ll have to join us another evening, if your schedule permits.”

As if his words had been clipped from his tongue, Popil could only nod mutely.

She tilted her head to bear the milky skin of her neck. “I’ll walk you out.”

Will watched them go. The lady swayed close to the inspector, letting him feel the warmth of her skin without contact. Popil was transfixed.

“What do you think?” Hannibal asked him.

Will could only hope she was out of earshot, because the words came before he could stop them.

“She is bewitching,” he said, “and terrifying.”

“Why terrifying?”

The lady’s impartial stare from the terrace, her scent, the refined intimacy with Popil—it made Will queasy.

“She’s a hunter, but she’s patient.” He shaped each word with bitter intention, “She lets her game come to her.”

Hannibal didn’t confirm or deny, but simply watched after his aunt with a bizarre blend of fondness and cold assessment.

“She likes you.”

“That fast, huh?” Will grumbled, “Don’t say it too loud or Popil will have my head.”

Hannibal chuckled and finally crossed the room to Will.

Will often found himself drowning in sensory input, but it wasn’t until reuniting with Hannibal that he realized how little attention he paid to smell and taste. Hannibal and his aunt used their keen sense of smell to manipulate and gather information just as aptly as they used language. Hannibal certainly never hesitated to comment on a scent he picked up from Will.

Perhaps it was out of a childish desire for revenge that Will attempted to return the favor.

As if Will had opened a cabinet, Hannibal’s approach came the faint scent of warm spices. Will could smell the crisp green herbs that had been pressed under Hannibal’s hands in preparation for their dinner. Beneath that, he was distinctly clean. Cold and copper. Somewhere hiding beneath was Hannibal himself, a warmth that Will couldn’t quite catch.

Will had hoped to discover something worth mocking, but instead was dazed by the impulse to go closer and smell deeper. He blamed Hannibal’s influence, and shook it off like a dog in rain.

“I’m underdressed.” Will’s nerves were officially buzzing, and he chattered to hide it. “I’ve worn this all day. I’m surprised you let me inside.”

“It’s part of your charm.”

Will rolled his eyes. There were a great many things that Hannibal found amusing about him, but Will had sincere doubts any of them could be considered “charming” by conventional standards.

He attempted to flatten the wrinkles on his shirt to no effect.

“If it bothers you—”

Will froze when Hannibal reached for him. With a gentle hand, he stole the glasses from Will’s nose. He brushed Will’s rampant curls into a more acceptable shape. Even with the instant furrow of his brow, Will’s eyes naturally closed at the touch. Cool fingers slipped over the shell of his ear and curled at the nape of Will’s neck. They held there, pressing into his skin before releasing.

Spell broken, Will scowled at the ground.

“There.” Hannibal folded the glasses and passed them back to Will, looking particularly smug. “You’re a new man.”

It was Will’s turn to fight the flush on his cheeks.

As much as Hannibal’s casual touch confounded him, Will was unable and unwilling to stop him.

—

Dinner was less excruciating than he anticipated.

With Inspector Popil gone, Lady Murasaki noticeably relaxed and lost her manipulative edge. Even if the lady was the embodiment of elegance and refined beauty, she didn’t demand it from others. She didn’t hold it against Will for lacking basic social etiquette, though she had every right to. If anything she became more affectionate with Will as they interacted. Hannibal must not have been lying when he said the lady liked him.

They discussed Parisian art and music mostly. Will happily took a backseat and let his hosts entice him with all the must-see galleries and events. They were already setting plans on Will's behalf.

Between the lady and Hannibal, every blunder Will made that threatened to derail their pleasant conversation was effortlessly compensated for. Will eventually stopped watching his sharp tongue. At some point, he even started to enjoy himself.

Hannibal took their dishes when their meal was over, and Lady Murasaki invited Will into the sitting room for another glass of wine.

There was something enticing in the way the lady’s exposed wrists twisted as she poured for them. It wasn’t deliberate, but a habitual gesture. It lulled Will into a false sense of security.

“I’m glad my letter reached you,” she said.

Will nodded dumbly. He wasn’t ready for this conversation, but with Hannibal conveniently predisposed in the kitchen it was clear he didn’t have much choice. He gulped at his glass as soon as she handed it to him.

“Why… did you write to me?”

The lady’s heavy lashes curtained over dark eyes, brimming with secrets.

Will wondered absently if Hannibal had displayed the decapitated head of Paul Momund for her. No—he didn’t have to wonder. Hannibal would have presented the kill to the lady like one would offer flowers.

Hannibal was thirteen then. It wasn’t long after the Count had taken him in. He was just getting to know his aunt and uncle—gaining a love and appreciation for them. Then this butcher grossly insulted Lady Murasaki in the market. Witnesses had been shocked by the violent reaction of her seemingly reserved nephew.

Will was familiar with Hannibal’s old need for poetic retribution. It was Hannibal that demanded the POWs who harmed Will have their hands flayed and their tongues cut out.

 _They aren’t deserving of either_.

The butcher’s insults were reason enough for Hannibal to kill the man there in the market, but the police intervened. The butcher was left _unpunished_.

Perhaps that could have been the end of it. Perhaps Hannibal’s impulsive need to enact his retribution could have been pacified into oblivion by his beautiful aunt.

That future, however, became impossible after the death of Hannibal’s uncle.

Rumor spread, despite the lady’s best efforts, and the Count was outraged. Hannibal’s uncle confronted Paul Momund to defend his wife’s honor. He and the butcher fought briefly before the Count suddenly collapsed. His weakened heart failed him in that instant, and he died face down on the floor of the butcher’s stall.

When Will heard that this— _this_ —had been the unfortunate and unremarkable end of Count Robert Lecter, it genuinely saddened him. For such an exceptional man to die in a filthy stall, to be betrayed by a body that couldn’t contain him…

The butcher’s fate was sealed.

How did the lady feel when Hannibal offered the head of the man who insulted her, who was responsible for the death of her beloved husband?

How did it feel when Lady Murasaki stuck the pig’s head on a spike outside the Sûreté?

Curiosity writhed in the shadows of Will’s mind. And a tremor of elation.

His breath shuddered and he bit the feeling back. Only then did he realize the lady had been watching him. The black pools of her eyes drew every detail into their murky abyss.

“Speak to me.”

Will shook his head and ducked away. He could feel her eyes drilling into him, and the understanding that now dawned in her.

“I know very little about you, Monsieur Graham, but you have been a ghost in Hannibal’s life as long as I’ve known him.” She came to Will and perched on the divan beside him. “There is blood in your eyes.”

“Is it familiar?” He glared up at her, “It should be.”

She did not flinch at the flare of hostility.

“It is.” Her velvet voice dipped. “You are haunted, Monsieur Graham. You don’t invite your dreams of smoke and death. They come to you unbidden.”

His lips pressed into a thin line.

“Hannibal dreams to remember.” She gripped the cushion, the only subdued hint of her distress. “There was a great wound in him when he came to us. We were sure it would consume him. He would wake screaming…” The lady trailed off.

Will stared into the bloody reflection in his wine. “Mischa,” Will offered in her silence. “He cried for Mischa.”

She put a hand on his knee and those black eyes revealed long suppressed hope. Will couldn’t hold her stare and pulled roughly from her touch.

“I’m not sure what you want from me.”

The lady retracted, seeing how she had agitated him. With the silk of her words, she slipped back into deliberate cordiality.

“Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to offend you.” She smiled, and Will was coated in the saturating resin of her attention. “You are an astute man. It is easy to be lured into open conversation with you.”

She dragged a heated blush out of him, and he scowled at the floor. “Most would just say I’m rude.”

“Honesty isn’t rude, Monsieur Graham. Even when you think you are cruel, it’s only because you can’t bring yourself to lie.” She added, “Those who don’t appreciate that quality are afraid to face reality. They can be resentful when their illusions are broken down.”

If she wanted honesty, he’d give it to her.

“What illusions have I broken for you, Lady Murasaki?”

Irritation flickered in her eyes, but she was too proud to linger in it. “Some part of me believed Hannibal had changed, that I had been the one to change him. I was convinced that if I asked him, he would leave this place behind to be with me.” Her voice rang with the echoes of disappointment. “I was wrong. He is being drawn into darkness as he had once been drawn into silence.”

“Not drawn.” Will fought a spiteful smile. “Hannibal wasn’t drawn into silence. Silence captured him.”

“I thought I could free him from it.”

That twisted sharply in Will's heart. He knew exactly what she meant. Ever the hunter, the lady had hoped to draw Hannibal in herself. She sought to blind him to the violence of his dreams, and replace it with the sting of citrus and the caress of sweet blossoms.

“I know him, and it is not easy knowledge—”

“You don’t,” Will snapped. “Even with as much as you think you know him, it’s not enough.”

“He’s been waiting for you, Monsieur Graham.”

A shiver ripped through him, and Will ran a hand over his eyes. He had no right to admonish her. His thoughts were the mess of threads on the back of a tapestry. They tangled and knotted, but he couldn’t see the image they created. He couldn’t see what was coming.

“He is drawn to the dark, and he is drawn to you. Seeing you now, I understand why.” She laid her palm to Will’s cheek, forcing him to look at her. “Even if you hate yourself for it, you are at home with the violence he craves.”

_I’ve seen your face enough I could almost believe I know you._

Her first real words to him held new meaning. What had she seen? Which of Hannibal’s nightmares had she peeked into? He snarled, but only to hide the rush of irrational gratitude. Thank you, fortune's fool, for your message in a bottle.

“If you knew that, why bring me here?”

“I am afraid for him,” she said. “I love him, but I cannot find him.” Despite the lady’s deeply seated dread, she did not withdraw. Even trembling, she was in perfect possession of herself. “Help him, Will.” She stroked Will’s cheek as if it were Hannibal’s. “Help him.”

She held him for a moment longer, and when her hand did slip from Will’s skin it left a ghostly chill. The shadow of a sad smile clung to her as she rose.

“Will you bring this to the kitchen for me?” She extended her glass to Will.

He took it, nodding. She left him then, and her fragrance lingered after.

He remained on the divan, twisting the neck of the lady’s glass in his fingers. Every avenue of thought was stunted by frustration and denial. Her request—her letter—he didn’t understand any of it. He stood with force and felt the warmth of the wine coursed through his limbs. Not knowing what he wanted, or how he was meant to feel, Will let himself be drawn out of the sitting room by the distant sounds of dishes and running water.

He moved silently down the hall to the kitchen and leaned in the doorway. Hannibal stood at the sink, his back to Will. Will tried to imagine Hannibal as the small boy he had met—small enough that he'd need a stool to reach the counter—but it didn’t fit. Not anymore.

Hannibal's back was broad, completely foreign to Will. His sleeves were rolled up, suit jacket and tie long gone. Water droplets glistened on his forearms in the low light.

“How is my aunt?”

Of course he knew Will was there.

“She turned in for the night.”

Will watched him work, reluctant to bring himself closer into Hannibal’s orbit. The kitchen was spotless. There was hardly anything left to help with, even if he wanted to. Hannibal must have cleaned it before starting on the dishes.

“You could have joined us, you know.”

“I didn’t wish to interrupt.” He worked quietly before asking, “What were you discussing?”

“You, mostly.”

Will couldn’t see the smile, but he heard it.

“Nothing too terrible, I hope.” He finally turned, drying his hands.

They stared at one another across the expanse of the kitchen, and the back of Will’s neck tingled. He couldn’t help the thought that he was stepping into an arena.

“She doesn’t pull punches.”

Hannibal chuckled, “I can’t imagine my aunt saying anything forthcoming enough to consider a ‘punch’.”

“I tend to bring it out in people. She was lyrical about it, at least.” Will swirled the wine at the bottom of his glass before finishing it. “She said I’m ‘at home with violence’.” He hadn’t intended to share that with Hannibal, but there it was.

“Do you disagree?”

“It makes me wonder what exactly you’ve told her,” Will amended, “or what she’s seen.”

“I can say with confidence that the more graphic depictions of you had slipped her mind until very recently.”

“Christ, Hannibal.” He roughed up his hair, disrupting what Hannibal had arranged earlier. “Does she know I’m a killer, or does she just think you’ve fantasized that I am?” Will nattered on, “I don’t know what kind of show you promised your aunt and Inspector Popil, but it’s over. I refuse to be leered at.”

Hannibal’s hands stilled on the towel he was folding. His face stayed indiscernibly blank. Was he disappointed? Insulted? Will could only see himself reflected back. Defensive and frantic.

Will deflated with a groan, “I’m sorry, I’m just tired. I’m glad I’ve met them—I know they’re important to you. I… I'm _unsteady_ around other people.”

Hannibal extended his hand to Will and his heart lurched. He meant the wine glasses, goddamn it. Will crossed the threshold and pushed them clumsily into Hannibal’s ready hands. He took them without a word, leaving Will to lean against the counter-top and wait.

“It’s been a busy day for you. I should have anticipated your discomfort.”

That certainly didn’t make Will feel any better.

“I don’t need you to coddle me, Hannibal. I’ve been like this my whole life.” He sighed again, “I can keep it together.”

Hannibal sat the glasses stem up on the folded towel. He stared into nothing, lost in his swirling thoughts. Trailing droplets of water streaked down his arms to his grip on the counter. This image of Hannibal suited him much better than the one in Will’s distant memory. The solid strength of his figure was a better match for the promise of blood buried deep in those wine soaked eyes. They had a similar, saturating and dizzying effect to the lingering vintage on his tongue.

A strand of hair had fallen in Hannibal’s eyes. Will brushed it behind his ear without thinking and those lidded eyes flickered to Will. Fearful instinct kicked in at what stalked the depths of Hannibal’s stare, and he froze.

“I don’t want you to.” With a step, Hannibal caged Will against the counter. “I want to see you untethered.”

He traced Will’s jaw with his gaze, then down his throat before leaning into Will’s space. Hannibal nosed below Will's ear, lips grazing the skin.

Will swallowed and gripped Hannibal’s arm, unsure if he would push Hannibal away. He couldn’t find the motivation, or the strength. All he could think about was his pulse throbbing against Hannibal’s mouth.

“Your aunt does that too.”

“What?”

Will turned his head to look, fighting to steady his breath. “Flirtatiously change the subject. You have that in common.”

Hunger radiated off Hannibal in waves and it sent a shot of heat through him. Yet, past that predatory gaze there was uncertainty. Like he was the one pinned and not Will. The disorientated want in Hannibal’s eyes could not be stowed away.

“Is that what I’m doing?”

He may have been aiming to sound incredulous, but it struck Will as genuine. Hannibal had acted on impulse and that terrified him. Will pressed a hand against Hannibal’s cheek. To ground him.

“What is it, Hannibal? What’s wrong?” When Hannibal said nothing, Will’s guilt flared and stumbled out of him. “I shouldn’t be here. I don’t care what your aunt wants, I shouldn’t have come—”

Hannibal grabbed him then, fingers digging painfully into the meat of his shoulders.

“Don’t you dare.” The threat rippled through Will, tempered only by the wounded undercurrent. “Please.”

Hannibal hadn’t been drawn into the dark. It had captured and embraced him. He hadn't sought it, it had simply happened. To both of them. In the expanse of that frigid winter, something had been born in Will. Through his hand and the edge of his knife, Will had given it shape.

Will ran from it then.

With Hannibal's red starving eyes locked and intent on tearing him open, there was nowhere for Will to go. He flushed at his own needs, new and unexpected as they were.

He would allow it. If only for a moment. Will would let himself feel.

Carving along the seam of desire was the thirst for violence and death. It pumped into his limbs, up his neck. Will allowed that ever-present dark to possess and fill him to the edges of his being where it belonged. He held Hannibal’s face and watched the shock play across like an electric current. His gaze dipped to Will’s lips. Even now Hannibal held himself still—wrestling for the control he was so close to losing.

Hannibal leaned into him.

“Please, Will.”

Unable and unwilling to refuse, Will kissed him.


	6. Fuck the Farm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another! *slams mug*
> 
> There's a little time wibble-wobbling happening here. I'm not interested in jumbling timelines/POVs like this in the long run. It's just a temporary mechanism. The way I think of it... Will and Hannibal aren't on the same page yet. They are two celestial bodies spinning towards one another and collision is imminent.
> 
> Also, thank you so much for your comments! I freakin' love unstable Hannibal. He is so conflicted and impulsive in Hannibal Rising. And honestly, self-destructive. But don't worry! He'll find his paddle soon enough.

Hannibal stood at Lady Murasaki’s apartment and knocked, ignoring the key in his pocket. She greeted him fresh from her bath and in a light kimono. Her hair was loose and damp on her shoulders.

“Good evening, Hannibal.”

“Good evening, my lady.” Hannibal presented a package wrapped in brown butcher paper. “For dinner.”

Pleased, she moved aside for him. “Thank you.”

She followed Hannibal to the kitchen. He navigated the room with well-acquainted ease, putting the meat and homemade stock away before turning on the oven. He shed the suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves. It was habit to wash his hands as he would at the hospital. Meticulous, meditative. Will’s lecture would not be over for an hour or so. There was plenty of time for him to prepare the herbs and glaze for the loin, cut the vegetables for roasting, and have a much needed conversation with his aunt.

The lady came to the table to fondly watch him work. The smell of citrus clung to her.

“Are there any oranges left, or have you claimed them all?”

He knew Lady Murasaki rarely bathed without an orange or two bobbing in the water with her. She produced one from the pantry and resisted the urge to cut into the skin with her fingernails. Instead the lady pressed it to her lips. She came to him with a sly smile and Hannibal caught the scent of flowers. Gardenia or peony. She had added them to her bath. Not for Popil, but for Will.

Hannibal flexed his jaw, but kept his eyes on the knife as he cut stalks of asparagus.

“Now that I’ve introduced Will to the inspector, I worry I will see very little of him.”

His aunt laughed lightly, “You’ve brought that upon yourself, Hannibal.” She brushed his shoulder, just to touch him. “Isn’t it good that he has a reason to stay?”

He hummed in answer and moved on to the dry herbs. He crushed them under steady palms, freeing their fresh scents.

“I am eager to meet him,” and she meant it. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you this happy.”

He was amazed she hadn't seen past the mask yet. He was envisioning the little box in his mind—the one he had set aside especially for her on the day Will arrived. Still closed tight, sitting on its high shelf.

“I have you to thank.”

She was quiet for a moment. Then her black eyes were finally gripped by the beginnings of fear. And genuine regret.

“I shouldn’t have kept it from you. I should have told you sooner.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I wanted you to be here, not reaching for the past.”

“Will Graham was your answer to that?”

“You can only live in dreams for so long.” She put a hand on Hannibal’s face and brought the calming scent of citrus closer. “I wish you could see yourself—how you’ve changed. Your heart is singing.”

He smiled then, enough for a flash of teeth. His aunt and uncle had once feared the child that screamed in his sleep. They consulted doctors and counselors, all of them encouraged Hannibal to forget. They didn’t ask him what happened when he ran from the orphanage. They didn’t ask about his parents. Or Mischa. They willed him into silence. Years passed, and the screaming stopped. They believed he had moved on. They believed the dream was over.

One painting was all it took to shatter that illusion.

 _That’s_ why she summoned Will. He was the only one left who could shake Hannibal awake, or so his aunt believed. She had no idea how wrong she was. And how right.

“You have always been a curious woman.” He checked the clock and retrieved the meat. He dropped the cool package on the counter with a thud. “When I killed the butcher, I believed it was for the worth of your person. For my uncle. And yet…” It hadn’t satisfied him.

Will’s face, illuminated by fire, now appeared in the gallery of his thoughts. He smile was tender as he ruffled Hannibal’s hair with a heavy hand. This was how Hannibal remembered Will the night he came back from Kaunas. The man had transformed before his eyes. Horrified and overwhelmed in one moment by what he had done to that guard, then shifting miraculously into a contented and buoyant joy. The simple answers Will had found for himself—ones he had refused to share—had somehow wrenched him free.

It burned Hannibal still.

“Even after I found the men who murdered her—” The lady went still beside him, “—I couldn’t bring myself to kill them.”

He wanted that peace. He wanted that satisfaction. Now that Will was here, Hannibal could seek those answers directly.

Lady Murasaki put a hand on her nephew, and he met her with shining eyes. The anger he felt evaporated, leaving him rapturous and endlessly grateful.

“Thank you for giving Will Graham back to me. Finally, I can keep my promise to Mischa.”

—

They didn’t meet often. Now that Enrikas Dortlich's elderly father was dead and gone, there was very little to stop him from visiting Paris at his leisure. His rat face hadn’t changed much, only poorly aged and more bored. Hannibal could still remember Dortlich’s webbed fingers squeezing the meat on his and Mischa’s arms, testing for who was fattest.

As Dortlich's visits to Paris grew more frequent, Hannibal suspected he was arranging a change of occupation and identity so he might stay permanently.

His drinking partner was Zigmas Milko, a dark and grubby man with rotting teeth.

Hannibal was much more familiar with Milko. He was the first of Mischa’s murderers Hannibal had stumbled across in Paris, the first face to leap from his nightmares and into reality. Walking the street, a rabid wolf amongst sheep.

Milko was a frequent visitor to the jazz clubs and breweries down the Boulevard Saint-Germain, not far from Hannibal’s old school. Milko didn’t always drink. Not after a job. He wanted to stay alert, and live in the high of a kill as long as he could. He would slip into a club and rub against the bar girls with the silencer tube in his front trouser pocket just to see their faces when they felt it hard against them.

Slight and unimpressive as he was, Milko was effective. He was a natural lurker and had the look of a man who’d bum money off a passerby that lingered too close. As a result he was left largely alone, even as he plotted to break into the home across the road and slaughter its occupants.

“Fuck the farm,” was his mantra. He muttered it before every job. Hannibal imagined it was something of a promise he kept to himself, reminding Milko that the path ahead was always better than whatever farm he had left behind. Hannibal could relate to an extent.

Milko and Dortlich posted outside a bar they hadn’t been kicked out of yet. Dortlich bummed a cigarette and they watched the club across the street while they smoked. They eyed the young men and women dancing inside like one would appraise livestock at an auction. Milko was excited, muttering and pointing when a girl he liked wandered to the window. Dortlich had the decency to look disgusted by Milko and his commentary. It wasn’t long before they moved onto another bar for more drinks.

Hannibal watched them passively, leaning on the handles of his German BMW. It was strange to have spent so many years as these men’s shadow and done nothing until now. Even though he couldn’t discern his own urges and motivations, the vision in his mind was one he could no longer escape.

Based on the slur of Milko’s drunken singing when they stepped out of the latest bar, Hannibal knew their night was over. He put on his helmet and kicked the motorcycle to life. The two men walked west toward Dortlich’s car.

With a twist in his lip Hannibal muttered, “Fuck the farm,” and pulled away to the east.

Hannibal didn’t need to tail them. He knew exactly where they were going.

The stage was already set.

Hannibal took a deep breath, letting the cool night air pool in his lungs. The bike vibrated under him and jerked with the bumps in the road. A weight was being lifted away by the speed and the air coiling around him. The stagnation of time, atrophy.

This design—the gift his mind had crafted—could finally be born.

—

Hannibal stared at Will’s mouth, recalling how those lips had wrapped around a forkful of Enrikas Dortlich.

He shuddered and knew he would never forget that moment. Just as he would never forget the dark shift within Will’s eyes, how the devil in him bubbled to the surface after being so long neglected. He would never forget the taste of Will’s kiss. The hungry sliding of his tongue, the welcoming hum of sound in Will’s throat.

Will’s touch burned on Hannibal’s neck, through his hair and scalding down his chest. He wished Will would be rougher. Unsheathe his claws and dig into him—if only to match the excruciating torrent of feeling with a physical wound. It was an embarrassing thought that made him chuckle into Will’s mouth.

He had his eyes open and watching. This close, he observed Will’s shuttered lashes. Hannibal imagined touching them, like moving his thumb over a paintbrush to fan the bristles. Will’s pale eyes were practically glowing beneath them in each slow blink. Unfocused, intent on absorbing other sensations.

Hannibal kept his hands firmly on the counter and let Will do as he pleased. He was too afraid to shatter this moment.

Will suddenly did what Hannibal wanted and dug nails into his ribs through the thin dress shirt. Hannibal quivered with an intake of air that startled Will, and he broke away.

Even though Will was staring at Hannibal with ravenous eyes, there was a flicker of apprehension. When Hannibal saw that unabashed desire retreat within Will’s rigorous self-restraints, his stomach plummeted. He couldn’t let this go. Not yet.

Hannibal closed his arms around Will like a vice grip, jerking him away from the counter. He cast his reservations aside and kissed Will with a growl that vibrated through them both. He snaked a hand into Will’s hair and pulled his head back to open his mouth. A startled moan was caught in Will’s throat, and he went pliant in Hannibal’s arms. He gripped the back of Hannibal’s shirt and—conscious or not—rolled his hips into Hannibal with liquid force. It was then that Hannibal knew it had to end.

He softened their kiss and backed them into the counter. Now pressed fully together, a tense ripple of awareness passed through Will that Hannibal couldn’t say with certainty was arousal.

He wouldn't push this now. Hannibal eased their lips apart, but kept Will pinned to the counter. There was no hiding the satisfied smile on his face, no matter how subtle, and it was quickly reflected in Will.

He pressed his forehead to Hannibal's with a breathless laugh, and they stayed close until the heat dissipated.

For a moment, they both forgot about the world around them. They forgot the broken promises, the slights and pain. Their dreams and nightmares.

But the tender connection ended when Will shut his eyes. That familiar fold in Will's brow appeared and Hannibal sighed. Will couldn't stop his ever-working mind.

Hannibal allowed himself one more reverent kiss before separating. Regret had wormed its way into Will. So soon. The older man took a settling breath, lifting the bow of his lips in a shy smile. 

Hannibal tried not to feel disappointed, especially when there was so much he had to look forward to.

“You should rest, Will. I’ve asked enough of you today.”

Will nodded, not fighting him. He stepped past Hannibal, but stopped at the door.

“Will you walk me out?”

Hannibal smiled at the ground and they went together, feeding on the warmth that lingered between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm writing the next chapters now, and OH BUDDY bring on the murder. Shit is about to get DRAMATIC.


	7. An Invitation

When the hotel staff informed Will he had a visitor, it wasn’t who he expected.

Inspector Popil waited for him outside with a haunted stare was locked somewhere in the distance. All color was drained from his face.

Will knew that look.

The best Popil could do to greet Will was offer his hand to shake. Popil gripped him painfully, pleasantry and courtesy lost in the depths of his racing thoughts.

“I need you to come with me, Monsieur Graham.” Popil didn’t wait for him to respond. He went quickly to his car and opened the door for Will. “I need your insight.”

Hannibal had warned him this would happen, but Will hadn’t expected it so soon.

Popil drove with the pedal pressed almost to the floor.

“I instructed my men to leave the scene alone. It wasn’t discovered until the smell—” He broke off, shaking the mania from his eyes and refocusing on the road. “The landlord was following up on a complaint. We’re holding him at the commissariat. He insists he didn’t touch anything.”

Will pushed himself into his seat as firmly as he could. Every swerve had his stomach lurching.

“There’s no sign of forced entry, the defensive wounds—”

“I need to see it for myself, Inspector.” If Popil wanted his help, Will would do things his way. “You’ve read about me, you know how I work. I need to look at the scene with as few people present as possible. Alone, if you’ll allow it.”

Popil tapped his finger on the wheel. What the inspector had seen flashed in his eyes, sending visible chills through him. For a moment, Will had hoped to be denied. He had hoped Popil would declare Will’s conditions impossible and turn them right around, back to the hotel.

“I understand,” Popil finally said. “I’ll take you in myself.”

Will saw the blue lights flashing well before they arrived.

The outside of the building was swarmed by officers. Popil was greeted as he left his vehicle. Someone updated him on what else they had discovered, but Will wasn’t listening.

He was watching an officer standing to the side heaving out the contents of his stomach. Another rubbed his back and muttered reassurances. The sick officer had tears on his cheeks, forced out from gagging. His eyes were glazed, trapped in the horror of whatever waited for Will in the floors above.

He sluggishly trailed Popil into the building. Wide eyes and gaunt faces followed them all the way—too similar to the fearful gazes that haunted Will's dreams.

“It’s on the third floor.”

Will only nodded, and an eerie quiet held them in their ascent.

The door was open to a modestly adorned front room. A handful of cushioned pieces, a simple rug, a few decorative things here and there. There was no personality to it, no projection of identity in the owner’s selection. The furniture was part of the lease, the inspector explained. Nothing had been obviously overturned or damaged. The only sign that something was wrong was a red footprint trailing from the dining room.

“It’s from one of the officers,” said Popil.

The man’s voice grated against his ears. Will’s thoughts were already vibrating with the promise of understanding. The unfolding.

Popil was noise.

Noise, noise.

Before he could speak again, Will stopped him.

“Inspector.” His voice bounced in the room. “Stand… stand away from me. Please only answer if I speak to you directly.”

Popil’s face twisted in a scowl, but he relented. He stood like a statue in the corner where he could still see into the dining room.

Good enough.

Will observed the blood on the floor under the archway and the shadow of the officer who made it appeared. He fled the dining room, barreling into the couch and pushing it askew. He held his mouth and staggered to the door, out of Will’s sight.

Will took a breath and walked through the archway.

Before him was a long table set for company. The head chair was empty, as was the place of honor at the host’s right hand.

The next two seats were occupied.

Strapped upright into the chairs were two dead men. The filthy, dark-haired man had blood dribbling down his chin, dressed in a rumpled suit. The blond, with his thinning hair slicked back, was in an officer’s uniform that sagged in odd places. His cheeks had been carved out.

The man in the suit reeked of alcohol. There was bruising around his neck. He had been choked until he lost consciousness, but no further. The officer had a grotesque lump on his head, accompanied by a trickle of blood. The head trauma probably would have killed him, if he hadn’t died of other causes first.

Will’s skin was crawling, anticipating the fall.

Will removed his glasses and closed his eyes. He allowed the pendulum in his mind to wipe away the outer world. It brushed off the bruises, the blood, the bodies, until all that remained were the empty chairs.

Will stepped backward, pulled by the thread of time as it reversed.

In the front room, the door to the apartment shut and locked itself. The lights went out, leaving only the weak orange glow from the street falling through the windows in great blocky patches on the floor. Will waited to the side of the entrance, thoroughly obscured by shadow.

He bumped into a small table there. On it was a small statue, the bust of an older man in a powdered wig. The inscription at the base read "J.J. Rousseau". Will felt a rush of amusement and returned his original weapon—whatever it had been—to his coat pocket. He hoisted the heavy sculpture, testing his grip on it.

How perfect.

The door opened and the drunk bumbled past, completely unaware of Will.

The bust was not for him.

Will brought the sculpture down on the head of the second man the moment he appeared. The officer dropped like a sack of rocks.

“You did not expect me, but I expected you.”

There was time for Will to return the bust before the officer’s drunk companion swirled around to see what had happened. Will pulled the smaller man into him. He knew exactly where the drunk’s hidden weapon would be and relieved him of it. Will grappled around the drunk’s neck and waited. Calm. Patient.

The man flailed, releasing only choked sounds, until he eventually fell quiet.

“I had been waiting for this moment. I knew your every step. I knew when you’d be alone.”

The smaller man was torn from his arms and Will was in the dining room again, before two corpses dressed in their Sunday best. The jarring transition left Will huffing for breath. He pressed a fist to his throbbing temple.

“Monsieur Graham?”

He bit out, “I’m fine.”

He reassessed the bodies in present time, trying to track where the reconstruction went wrong. There was blood coating the legs of the chairs, but not enough on the ground. Not nearly enough.

He spotted the thin trails of red on the wood floor, where the chairs had been hauled into place. He could feel the tug of the string, drawing him to the door at the back of the dining room. Will suddenly resisted, gripping his chest where the invisible thread held him as it cinched tighter and tighter around his heart. The room stretched and narrowed, dragging Will toward the door until his feet threatened to slip from under him.

The body of black flies flitted at the edges of his vision. Always there. Always.

Will wrenched himself free and bent over the back of the host’s chair. The sweat beading on his forehead dripped onto the dish. He calmed down enough to spot something obvious about the table.

There weren’t just four settings—two for the host and honored guest, and two for the dead men. Three more places had been set after that.

There were three more empty seats to fill.

“You’ve all been invited to a feast of my making.” Will’s heart was hammering against his ribs, leaving him lightheaded. “This is only the beginning.”

The promise of more sent a fluttering in Will’s stomach. Proud, so proud of his work. Of his message. So hopeful that it would reach the ones it was intended for.

Will had to see. He had to know. The humming grew louder. Pressing in on him from all directions.

Will didn’t realize he had reached the door until he gripped the handle with a clammy hand. Red was smeared on the floor under his feet, more of the frantic footprints. Bread crumbs left just for Will.

He opened hell’s mouth and released the flies.

What he could see was a pristine white room. The tile floor, the counters, the whole kitchen had been thoroughly cleaned and prepared for this special event.

There was an assortment of organs laid out on the kitchen island. Liver, lungs, kidneys, heart, intestines. There were others Will didn’t recognize, but he knew it was only one set. They had been trimmed and prepared for cooking—now rotting. There was something odd that stood out among them. Of all the parts on display, there was only one on an actual dish: a fat tongue coiled like a salted slug on a neat plate.

Flies, real or imaginary, swarmed around Will when he drew too close to the island. He batted at them, covering his eyes. Where was the other set of organs? What had the killer taken from his other victim? Somewhere in the hollow spaces of his mind, Will heard the sound of a knife slipping through flesh, glancing off bone. Carving. Over and over. Just the sound was enough to make his hands tired. It was the sound of hard labor. Of dedication.

His mind rebelled as his feet followed the bloody path—the lovely smudged trail of breadcrumbs. The neglected voice in his head screamed at Will to turn and run.

Will came around the island and found a glossy red mirror on the tile floor. It was undisturbed but for the edge that had been smeared by boot tracks. Stacked in the center was a luscious mound of flesh stripped from bone. Thick, indulgent slabs of meat.

A gift, he thought. _For you._

Will stretched his hand over the bounty and saw the white scar curved over his thumb. His heart galloped, fast and hard, then cut out. His vision swam and he dropped to his knees. He caught himself before he fell face first into the pool and stared at his reflection. He looked into the writhing black thing that had assumed his shape.

Will barreled out of the kitchen and slammed into the table. His hand dripping with red.

Standing at the host’s chair was Hannibal.

He smiled at Will and gestured to the right, to Will’s place at the table.

“Come. Eat,” he said.

Their voices joined into one.

“ _There’s plenty_.”


	8. Mirror, Mirror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta say, your comments are so freaking sweet! I love them!! Thank you so so much for reading this crazy thing. I'm having so much fun.

“Professor?”

Will’s pulse pumped with a fever. He crouched behind the table, unsure of when he had gone to his knees. The breath through his nose was like the piston of an engine. Focused. He felt more awake—more alive—than he had ever been in his life.

The blood on his palm was thick and old. It clung to him like jelly he could squeeze in his fingers.

“Monsieur Graham?”

Judging by how stiff his knees were, Will had been silent long enough to arouse concern. He hid his hand and walked into the front room where Popil was waiting.

“I’m fine.” Will was certain his shivering would be interpreted as shock, not adrenaline. “I just need a moment.”

He crossed to the window, putting his back to the inspector to hide his face. He wondered if Popil would see the blood in his eyes as Lady Murasaki had. He needed to get back in control.

Easier said than done. An image of Hannibal flickered past, Will's hands around his neck. Squeezing. His limbs tingled with unused strength, coiled tight like a spring.

Now was not the time. Will was still stuck in a room with an inspector of the Sûreté. Just as Hannibal had saved this display for him, Will would save his reaction for Hannibal.

Will went to the small bust of Rousseau by the door and searched the ground.

“Was it a gun? Or a knife?” Will asked. “One of them was armed.”

“A gun. We removed it from the scene.”

“Did you take anything else?”

Popil shook his head.

“The killer knocked the officer out first.” Will nodded at Rousseau, inviting the inspector to look. Popil's eyes went wide when he saw the smear of blood on the back of the sculpture. “It was almost too much.” Will answered Popil before he could form a proper question. “These men didn’t deserve a quick death. The killer wanted them alive for what he was going to do to them.” He looked into the contemplative, stony frown of Rousseau and resisted a chuckle. “Controlled as he is, there’s a degree of whimsy the killer allows himself to indulge in. He deviated from his original plan to satisfy a personal need for poetic symmetry.”

“You call this poetry?”

“Wasn’t Rousseau the one who believed people are born _good_? I wonder how he’d feel about being used to bash a man’s head in.” The words slipped out unchecked. Will grit his teeth and turned his attention to the furniture. “Everything here has a layer of dust. I doubt the owner did more than sleep here. Yet, the kitchen is spotless.”

The inspector mocked him with a huff, “The killer cleaned the kitchen?” as if the observation wasn’t relevant.

“He had _time_ to. He knew the victims’ routine well enough that he could prepare for them,” Will said. “It wasn’t a break-in. The killer probably stalked the owner long enough to get a hold of a spare key and let himself in.”

“Someone might have seen him coming and going?”

Hannibal wasn’t that stupid. Rather than lie, Will stayed silent. The inspector strode into the dining room, prompting Will to follow.

“He put them back in their clothing.”

Will recognized the uniform. It had changed some in the last ten years, but the silhouette was the same. “It’s a Soviet uniform, isn’t it? I can’t imagine he was wearing it while they were drinking. Same for the suit.” He resisted the quirk of his lips at the thought of Hannibal raiding the drunk man’s wardrobe for something he deemed appropriate for the occasion. “The killer arranged them this way. He is… meticulous.”

Will knelt by the chair of the drunk. He coldly noted the rope burns and black bruises on his wrist. This one had been made to watch as Hannibal cut the meat off his companion, piece by piece.

“I stripped you down, carved you, and wrapped you back up like a _gift_.” Will’s stomach lurched at the realization and a shiver coursed through him. He stood smoothly with a grace that wasn’t his own. “Only then were you fit to sit at my table.”

Popil stiffened beside him, suddenly very glad there were no other officers present.

“And the extra settings?”

“That’s how many are left.”

Popil nodded and passed him to enter the kitchen. Will saw the awe and terror in his eyes. This was what the inspector asked for, wasn't it? Will grimaced at the floor.

Popil disappeared within but his voice echoed, “The killer has anatomical knowledge. The cuts were precise—practiced. It could be someone with medical experience.”

The conversation had calmed Will somewhat, but the very idea of crossing the kitchen’s threshold had his pulse racing again. He waited around the doorway.

“The other was slaughtered like a pig,” Will said weakly. “A butcher?”

“No, you would cut a pig whole—bones and all. Not just strip the meat.”

Will finally turned and walked into the kitchen, out of the gallery and into the painting. A red glow seeped up the stark white walls from the hidden pool of blood. Will assumed he had imagined it the first time, that the red haze of his inner darkness had tainted the waking world. Every detail had been crafted by attentive hands. Nothing left to waste. Will couldn’t allow himself see past the horror he felt. He refused to acknowledge what else had been stirred up at the sight of Hannibal’s gift.

“What did you think when you first saw it?” Will’s voice vibrated in his throat, but it was hardly his.

“I thought of a deer… how one would dress a deer.”

He nearly chuckled. “A hunter, then.”

“The chairs were here,” Popil gestured at the room. “But if they were alive when he did this, how did no one hear them?”

Blood was rushing too quickly to Will’s head. His vision spotted with lights.

In the reconstruction Hannibal had prepared something else before seeing the bust of Rousseau. Considering the potential brain damage a blow to the head would cause, Will doubted the wounded officer would have been able to string two words together. The other man had to be subdued another way. Hannibal needed at least one of them present.

“He may have used a sedative.” That was the original plan, for both victims.

“Or a tranquilizer." Popil hadn't giving up the idea of a hunter or butcher. “What’s special about the tongue?”

“It offended him?” Will quickly amended, “No. No, it was set apart. He wanted to distinguish it from the rest.”

Seeing Popil standing in the kitchen felt wrong. He didn’t belong.

The flies gathered by the sink, beside where Will knew the pile was stacked. They condensed into the shadow of a man reaching for Will in the doorway. Will forced himself to look at the ceiling.

“I don’t understand. If he’s so meticulous, why the mess on the floor?”

“It wasn’t him.” Will’s arms and muscles ached. It had taken so much work. Maneuvering the body, draining it of blood. It was a small blessing that Will didn’t need to gut it. All he needed was the meat, and the drunk man’s fear. Fear… to get him talking.

Popil was staring.

“It wasn’t—It doesn’t fit the profile. Something must have triggered it. Set him off.”

Popil accepted this, adding, “There’s too much passion.”

A cold chill overcame him and, for an instant, Will thought he might be sick. He pressed into his forehead and his hand slid slick. With blood, he realized.

Popil dashed to his side, “Professor—”

“I’m sorry, I slipped earlier.”

“I’ll find a towel.”

He was about to grab something in the kitchen.

“Not from the evidence, Inspector.”

Popil laughed weakly, “Of course not.” He walked Will out of the kitchen, struck with real regret. “Professor… I hope you’ll forgive me for including you in this.”

“I doubt I’ve been of much help,” Will said.

“You believe the killer was hunting these men for some time. His goal wasn’t their deaths, but to torture them. So it was personal, but not enough for him to lose control. At least… not at first.”

Will held in a bitter smile. There wasn’t a moment where Hannibal lost control. Popil was simply conflating the carnage in the kitchen with Hannibal’s design.

“Presentation was important,” Popil continued. “The killer wanted this to be found, and send a message to his other targets—no doubt connected to these men. If we find that connection, we'll find the killer.” Popil’s eyes were bright with the thrill of the chase. “That’s a strong start, Monsieur Graham. I can’t thank you enough.”

”It’s all here. Anyone could see it.”

Poor choice of words.

Resentment flared in the inspector. He reigned it in, but not before Will caught a glimpse of Popil's distrust. “That’s not true, is it?”

Will couldn't blame him for that reaction. There was only one person that had peered into Will and smiled at what he saw. Everyone else—everyone normal—was like Popil, prickling with suspicion but drawn closer by their sick curiosity.

“I’ll have someone drive you home, professor. I’m sure the autopsies will tell us more. I might request your insight again, if you’ll allow it.”

“Am I the new Hannibal?”

Popil gave a feeble laugh. “He was on call at the hospital tonight. I don’t know what his aunt would say if I dragged him away from his work again. I'll consult him after the autopsy if I need to.”

Will simply stared at his red hand.

“Are you alright?"

Will didn't answer. He tried to look shaken. It wasn't too hard.

Popil took pity on him, "Wait here, professor. I’ll be back.”

As his footsteps faded, Will centered himself. Popil was right. There would be a connection here for the police to uncover. Hannibal wanted Popil to find the men he was hunting. He wanted them all to know what was coming, and Hannibal didn’t care if he burned up with them.

Will went to the dead officer. He carefully pulled the uniform's collar away to look at the exposed ribs, now dry and white. The message Hannibal had made with this man was clear enough. The officer wasn’t meant for the police, he was for Will.

He moved on to the drunk. Will could see into the hollow cavity of his torso through the gaps of his dress shirt. Cradled there was a smooth, round stomach still attached to the esophagus.

Why leave it? Aside from fulfilling Hannibal's vindictive imagery. Will was sure the autopsy would discover some of the officer's carved flesh in there. But that wasn't enough. He thought of the tongue arranged on the plate and pried open the man’s mouth.

It was an odd sight. The tongue had been severed at its base, leaving a gaping emptiness behind the man's rotten teeth. Will pulled the mouth wider and reached inside with his already bloody hand. It was easy without the tongue in the way.

He slid his fingers back into the throat and touched something there that didn’t belong. He tugged and felt whatever it was dragging up from the stomach. He got a good grip and pulled a thin black cord from the man’s mouth. Will kept on until something caught in the esophagus and clicked with a metallic sound.

Popil’s footsteps echoed on the stairs.

Will thrust his hand in again and dug out what Hannibal had hidden. Two grimy dog tags.

Will shoved them in his pocket and set the man’s jaw back into place as best he could.

He stepped away to where the inspector had left him just as Popil appeared, hoisting a towel.

Will reached out with his good hand and Popil tossed it at him.

“Thank you.” Will wiped the blood and evidence from his hand with a sheepish smile. He scrubbed the blood from his face as he walked to the door, but Popil didn’t move.

The inspector hesitated at the head of the table, tapping his finger on the chair. He stared at the empty spot to the right, eyes narrow as his thoughts clicked into place.

“Could there be two?”

_There you are, Inspector._

Will simply shrugged, “Misery loves company.”

They left the scene behind, but the images were burned on the background of Will's thoughts. Popil said his final goodnight and shut the door to the patrol car that would take him away.

Clutching the tags in his pocket, Will gave the driver Hannibal’s address.


	9. Unraveling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I have no fucking idea what's going to happen. This was one of those times.
> 
> As always, this is basically unedited! Have fun!

Hannibal’s shift at the trauma center had lasted into the dark hours of the morning. Though he didn’t show it, he was exhausted. He strode up the stairs to his apartment with a silent step. The strong scent of antiseptic clung to his clothes, and he wouldn’t be free of it until he changed and showered. He could hardly wait for the reprieve.

He blamed the sullied scrubs for not noticing his late night guest until he had locked the door behind him and hung his riding jacket.

His hand froze over the light switch and he turned. The streetlamps illuminated his easel and chair at the window, but little else. He stared into the blanket of dark.

“Good evening, Will.” He gave a polite smile, “How did you get in?”

“I ran into your landlord downstairs.”

Hannibal noted Will’s location in the room and took a step closer to the coat-rack. He couldn’t see Will’s face, but he could now smell a complex concoction of rage and fear. “I’ll give you a spare key for next time. We wouldn’t want to disturb him this late at night.” There was a syringe hidden in his jacket. Hannibal had anticipated some kind of retaliation for Milko and Dortlich’s deaths, but not this. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Will?”

“You know perfectly well what.”

There was a rustling of fabric, then the clatter of metal. Not quite the clicking of a trigger. Hannibal took another step toward the coat-rack.

From the veil of darkness, Will thrust out the dog tags.

Hannibal’s head quirked, surprised and curious. “You took them.”

The hand dropped into shadow again. Hannibal’s eyes were finally adjusting. He could see Will’s head, hanging heavy from his shoulders. He was watching the ground, reluctant to look directly at Hannibal even while protected by the dark. Will’s voice quivered with anger or horror or grief, they fluctuated so fleetingly Hannibal couldn’t be sure.

“Are you going to ask me if they deserved it?”

“Hannibal, what have you done?”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“You did,” venom took the place of shock.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“That’s not the word I’d choose.”

Hannibal fought a smile. “Isn’t it?”

It was then that Will stepped into the light, eyes blazing. The tags dropped to the floor, replaced by another glinting metal. Adrenaline pulsed through Hannibal at the sight of the knife in Will’s hand.

This was the man who shot a rebel through the head with a steady hand. Who wrestled with death, who beat a man with his bare fists—reveling in his own power.

Will’s eyes were shining in the dark, hungry for blood. For retribution.

Beautiful.

Will dove forward and Hannibal grabbed the jacket. Hannibal dodged clear of Will’s lunge and pulled the jacket taut between his hands. The room was suddenly too small, they danced on top of one another—the knife between them, forcing them apart. Will jabbed at him when he came close, maintaining that sliver of infuriating distance.

They had come so far, but still Will was hiding from him. Hannibal wrapped the jacket around Will’s next stab and wrenched the knife from his grip. He cracked Will’s face with his elbow, knocking him away.

Framed in the window, Will’s black silhouette vibrated with lethal intent.

After a moment of consideration, Hannibal dropped the jacket and knife on the bed.

Will charged him, shoving him into the wall and punching him across the face. Hannibal grabbed the swinging arm and yanked Will around, trapping him in a chokehold. Will smacked and kicked behind him, before gripping the choking arm and hoisting Hannibal off his feet. He curled them over and both went tumbling to the ground.

Once free, Will booted Hannibal off. He staggered to standing and searched the dark room for his knife. Hannibal launched from below to tackle around Will’s center. Will wrapped himself over Hannibal and fought to keep himself on the ground. His feet slipped and Hannibal lifted Will over his shoulder. He flung Will, slamming him into the wall and shaking the room. The man dropped onto the bed, growling and scrambling back up.

Will came out swinging, off-balance. Hannibal caught him easily and twisted Will’s arm behind him. He shoved Will face first into the mattress, onto the jacket. Hannibal watched Will fumble for the knife with an amused twist to his lip. At Will’s compromised angle, there was nothing he could do with it anyway.

Both were panting in the otherwise silent room. Hannibal bent the trapped arm further back, working a pained hiss out of the man under him.

“What was it that repulsed you, Will?” He said between heavy breaths, “That I’m one of the killers you claim to despise so much, or that it was you who inspired me?”

Will’s whole body clenched against the words and he turned his face into the mattress. His silence stung Hannibal more than he was willing to admit. He bit into his lips before giving in to a cruel smile.

“How much longer will you deceive yourself?”

Will didn’t struggle. His hand on the knife was weak, as if he were waiting for Hannibal to just get it over with. Hannibal lifted his chin, overcome by another unnamed feeling. Then he released Will from his hold.

With all the speed and flexibility of a cat, Will twisted up from the mattress. Will grabbed the back of Hannibal’s head and pressed the knife at his throat.

Their eyes met, unobstructed. Despite the murderous glint in Will’s fixing stare, the knife trembled against Hannibal’s neck. Will’s mouth was screwed shut against words he couldn’t say. The answers he wouldn’t give.

Not anymore.

Hannibal slipped the syringe into Will’s skin, under his arm, and pressed the plunger.

He watched the comprehension and betrayal flash in Will’s eyes. The blade bit into Hannibal’s skin, but it lacked conviction. Even in this final moment—this last chance to save himself and be rid of Hannibal—Will couldn’t do it. The knife slipped from Will’s numbed hand and clattered out of sight.

Hannibal let Will push past with the last of his strength and topple gracelessly to the floor. He hauled himself to standing on disobedient legs, staggering to the door.

Hannibal rose from the bed, unhurried.

“What you’re experiencing is the first flush of fear. Intense fear will come in waves. The body can’t stand it for long.”

Will glowered at him even he slid to the ground, eyes wide but dimming. He shook his head against the creeping numbness and sleep. A tear had gathered in his eye and now plopped on the polished wood.

Hannibal dropped beside him, catching him before he truly fell. He lowered Will to the floor, refusing to break eye contact even as Will’s eyelids fluttered.

“I’ve got you.”

Will clutched at his arm. He choked out Hannibal’s name.

“I’ve got you, Will.”

Then Will’s hand went slack.

—

Will blinked awake. He didn’t need to move to know he was bound in a chair. He was glad, in a way. He was fluid in his skin and the chair was the only thing keeping him from spilling. His thoughts were runny too, slipping in and out of his awareness. There were no shadows here. Dreams and nightmares blended into each other. Cupped in his brain.

That was real, he realized. A cold hand was cradling his head. He relaxed into it, grateful.

But the touch was gone too quickly. There was another prick at his arm and he grimaced. His head lolled back.

“It’s a combination of sodium thiopental and a few other hypnotics. The Sûreté uses it for interrogations. It’s been known to release repressed memories.”

Hannibal’s voice enveloped him and saturated his thoughts. Whatever Hannibal had administered while he was unconscious was doing a good enough job already.

Will was certain this was what Hannibal had given the drunk to get him talking. Will wondered absently if he was going to be split open and scraped clean as well. Wrapped up like a gift for Inspector Popil.

Will’s tongue was slow, “Am I being interrogated? Or am I repressed.”

The hand came back to him with a chuckle. Cool and gentle against him. His scalp shivered.

“A mix of both, I’m afraid.”

“Well, doctor,” He glared through the haze, even as another wave of delirium hit, “What now?”

Black, ink tainted water poured down in the air around them as the room gradually contorted. Will kept his eyes on Hannibal, or as close as he could force himself, to hold off the nausea.

“I thought we should start easy. Were you planning to kill me tonight?”

Will huffed, “You call that easy?”

The hand slithered down, wrapping around his neck. Not squeezing, just present. Will attempted to grip his useless hands. He couldn’t feel his toes. He could hardly feel anything. Just the chair and Hannibal.

“I don’t know,” Will’s voice broke. “I didn’t know what I was going to do until I saw you.”

“And when you did?”

He shook his head. “I don’t—” It came out as a half sob he wasn’t expecting. Anger rose to meet it. “How did you know?”

Hannibal rubbed his thumb against Will’s stubble.

“You’ll have to be specific, Will.”

He snapped his head up to scowl at Hannibal and was rewarded with a surge of vertigo. It passed quickly, leaving him weak. He felt warm, not necessarily sleepy, but pliant. It made his skin crawl.

“Please try to relax.” As if Will had a choice.

“How did you know… what I did. I didn’t tell you everything—”

“It wasn’t as hard as you think. I had the location and an estimated date. It didn’t take long to uncover a report of what the soldiers found in the prison.”

The orange streetlight from the window shifted to winter moonlight, cold and blue. The shadowed lines of bars slid across Hannibal’s face. Old sounds echoed down the stone hallway. Will tried to blink it away, but there was something at the edge of his periphery. There was a mound in the corner of the room. It crept out of the nothingness with broken and stripped limbs. Eyes peered up at him, flashing in the dim light.

“It scared them enough that they took pictures.” Hannibal’s hiss was close on his ear. “I thought of them often.”

The pool of red spread at Hannibal’s feet, washing away echoes of the prison cell. Will couldn’t help but feel relieved. The smooth, gory mirror was almost reassuring. He glanced down into it and felt himself sinking. Weightless. He couldn’t stop where his mind was taking him. He had lost the will to try.

“You lied to me when you said you didn’t enjoy it,” Hannibal told Will. “How could you not? I certainly did. It’s natural to look at the hard earned yield of your efforts and feel satisfied. Did you like my recreation? Did it feel authentic?”

The volume of Will’s voice startled him.

“No.” He said with sudden clarity, “It was hollow.”

Hannibal went very still. They were sitting at the dining table of the drunk man’s apartment, in their respective chairs. They were alone. No other settings had been prepared. Will noted the plate before him, plucking up a fork.

The dish was the glazed loin Hannibal had prepared for dinner with Lady Murasaki. Herb roasted loin garnished with a thick Cumberland sauce.

“It was a faithful reproduction, Hannibal,” Will added with a hint of delighted malice, “but it wasn’t you.” Will cut off a piece of the loin and turned the fork in his hand. “This. This is you.”

Hannibal paused over his plate, thoughtful.

“What is, Will?”

“Kidneys, liver, heart.” Will dragged his finger in the sauce. It oozed and splatted on the table. “You fed them to us, didn’t you?”

Hannibal answered before placing a bite in his mouth, “Just one of them.”

“You didn’t take anything from the butcher.” It wasn’t a question. “This was the first time. Eating them.”

Hannibal’s fork clicked on the plate, he stared into the middle distance. For an instant, time folded in on itself. The boy who slit the soldier’s throat, the Hannibal who carved Paul Momund, flashed in his place in rapid succession.

“Yes.”

“Do you know why?”

Hannibal ran his tongue over his lip, but didn’t answer. In Will’s fluid state, his perception was eerily attuned. He could feel Hannibal’s thoughts in his own mouth. It was moments like these Will remembered that the boy was still in there. The boy he opened his hand to, who osculated between inexplicable and childishly transparent.

“You didn’t understand then, and you still don’t. You can’t see it.”

Will tasted salt in the air. It called to him like a siren’s song and he took a deep breath. The sea crashed in his ears and sprayed over them. He was moving too quickly, leaping from one association to the next. He searched for something, an anchor, but he couldn’t know what was real. It all felt real.

Will’s face was flushed in the cold air, bones stiff. He was standing now at the port in Klaipeda, grasping the knot Hannibal had made in his hand instead of the boy himself. The brisk wind rushed around him, and he huddled into his coat.

He examined the knot tenderly.

“That knot you made, did you keep it?”

Hannibal’s answer came from far off. “Yes.”

“I watched you wind that knot, and thought… I thought of you tangled up in what you were becoming. What I was becoming. The impossible knot.”

He found Hannibal, as he had first seen him in Paris. Disheveled, in awe. All masks and illusions had been cast aside for that one moment. Those rich eyes locked on Will and told him everything he needed to know.

“You don’t know how to begin to undo it, do you? That’s what I feel, when I look at you. When I saw what you did to those men. There’s a hole in you, but you don’t know how to fill it.”

“And you do?”

Will’s head fell back, “God, help me.” He tried to lift his hand, to cover his face, but only jerked at his bindings. The rope bit into him and they were back in the apartment. Hannibal was kneeling beside him. “Do you know what Alexander did to solve the knot?” He had a painting in mind, but he couldn’t remember the artist. Hannibal would know. Alexander the Great in all his vibrancy held his sword high overhead. His red cape crowded around him, rumpled by the wind. His eyes were obscured in the shadow of his helmet.

Hannibal’s face was as stony as the conqueror, but there was fire playing in the maroon depths. Will gave voice to what he saw, even if Hannibal refused to.

“He cut it open.” Will softened in a genuine smile—tempting fate. “Is that what you want, Hannibal?”

Hannibal gripped his hands on the edge of the chair to keep them still. It didn’t matter. His intent carried through Will’s loosened mind with all the substance of reality. Those large hands shot at Will and dug through his scalp. Hannibal gripped his hair and used his thumbs to tear him as easily as an orange peel. The shell of bone cracked sharply under the press of Hannibal’s fingers. The sound of his skull breaking open ricocheted through Will’s body.

Will pressed into the chair to banish the delusion before it burst out of him in a scream.

“How can I tell you the truth if you don’t ask for it?” Will spoke rapidly now, “Why don’t you ask me about Klaipeda?” He licked dry lips. He had control here, more than Hannibal could have predicted. “Why don’t you ask why I left you? Or are you too afraid to know.”

Hannibal stood then to loom over Will. It was impossible for him to disguise the anger that now engulfed them both.

Oddly enough, it set Will at ease. He went lax in his chair. His veins still buzzed with whatever concoction Hannibal had administered, but it didn’t bother him anymore. He didn’t need to be afraid of losing himself. Not now. After all, the chair could hold him together. And Hannibal.

“I think it’s best to be direct. Ask me, and I’ll tell you.”

Hannibal stepped closer and took Will’s head in his hands with measured calm. He pressed his palms into Will’s temples, caging the madness. Will wasn’t the one who was vulnerable here. Will wasn’t the one who needed comfort.

“Why didn’t you take me with you?”

The wounded quiet of Hannibal’s voice undid him.

“I did.” Will scrunched his brow against the threat of tears, then groaned with a defeated smile, “Did you think I could forget you? Or that I wanted to? You… stayed close to me, always. My thoughts had the lilt and tenor of your voice.” He laughed a little, before it caught hard in his throat. “I-I thought I was fading. Thought I was losing my mind, but maybe I was just changing.” He finally looked at Hannibal, “You knew I couldn’t stay with you. It wasn’t possible.”

Hannibal clenched his jaw, “Did I?”

There was something swelling in the room. Something pushing at the seams of the walls.

“I was going to kill you, Hannibal.” Will could barely breathe. “I wanted to. And even if I didn’t… I knew I couldn’t hide my nature from you. I could see what was happening. To you. I didn’t want—”

“Nothing _happened_ to me, Will.”

“No…” Will laughed bitterly, “No, _you_ happened.” Bursting from the corners and creases of the room came the swarming flies. The smell of death and boiling broth. They roared in his ears. He strained to speak over them, “I know what you want, Hannibal. I know you’ve been waiting a long time.”

Hannibal’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Are you offering to be my accomplice?”

If Hannibal thought Will was bargaining for his life, he couldn’t be more wrong.

“You may have been a child when your parents died, when they ate Mischa, but there was no blind innocence to protect you. Every moment of your life plays in your mind with perfect sound and clarity. You've lived separate from yourself, watching from the dark all this time.” He mirrored Hannibal’s expression, adopting some of his sinister amusement. The flies stormed around them, dashing between them in streaks of black. “You want me there with you. You want me to know you—to _see_ you, as you saw me.”

Face inscrutable, Hannibal produced Will’s knife and opened it. _Is it time?_ he thought. Time to split open the knot?

Hannibal leaned close and the flies darted past his face. They caught on him like the splatters of paint and smeared into his skin. All the visions and hallucinations pulled into Hannibal. The oily black coated him until there was nothing left but the solid, smooth figure of a devil come to life. The absence of the flies left the room eerily bare and quiet.

The devil knelt beside Will again, staring with its whited out eyes. These weren’t the eyes Will wanted. It slipped the blade under the ropes and cut Will free. He lifted his arm and the motion seemed to release residual drugs back into his bloodstream. He felt faint again and drooped forward, held up only by the belt around his chest.

“The thiopental will wear off soon,” the devil said, sitting him back up.

“I hope so,” Will’s words slurred, unhindered, “Otherwise, I really will lose my mind.”

Will waited for another hallucination, but nothing came. The room was just a room. Only the devil remained. It continued to cut him free.

Suddenly compelled, Will reached out to touch the inky black skin. The devil tensed, its knife stopped. The pigment seeped into Will, draining the color away. Hannibal’s face finally appeared and Will smiled freely.

“Hannibal,” was all he said.

Hannibal sat back and broke contact. “I suggest you drink plenty of water, and sleep. The side effects can be unpleasant.”

Will chuckled, “Will you run from me now?”

Hannibal blinked, expressionless. “No, Will,” but disappeared into his kitchen anyway long enough for his absence to grate. He returned with a glass and held it to Will's mouth. Will didn’t realize how thirsty he was until he was gulping the water down. Hannibal put a hand on his face, saying, “Slowly.”

He undid the belt around Will's chest when he was confident Will could support himself. He massaged the rope marks on Will’s wrists to force blood back into them. Will winced at the pin-pricks of fading numbness.

“I hope you don’t make a habit of this whenever we’re overdue for a heart to heart.”

Hannibal smiled at him, “Would you prefer we speak at knife-point?”

“It’s more honest than drugging someone.”

Hannibal was quiet then. He prepared the bed and moved Will to it with a sterile affect. Will didn’t much appreciate being treated like an invalid and pushed Hannibal off when he tried to lay him down. The summer night was far too humid to let Hannibal tuck him in. He pushed off his pants, kicking them to the ground. He tried not to stare at the small stain of blood on his pocket from the dog tags. Then he stripped his shirt before collapsing exhausted on the bed.

The room was quivering around him. He should probably drink more water, but he wasn’t sure he could sit up again. Hannibal reappeared in silk pajama pants, and slightly damp hair, as if he had just splashed his face.

Will almost laughed aloud. Here they were settling down for the night as if they hadn’t just tried to kill each other. How could it be that the nightmare of war felt more real than this moment? Maybe he was still there, lying on a cot in the frozen woods, dreaming up contradictions.

Hannibal took a blanket from the closet and walked to the window, spreading it on the floor.

“What are you doing?”

Hannibal said nothing, looking from the floor to Will as if it were obvious.

Feeble as he was, Will scooted to make room and pat the bed. Hannibal hesitated, but came all the same to sit on the edge. He stared off, unmoving. Will watched a water droplet gather to the tip of Hannibal's disheveled hair and fall.

“Experiencing some regret?”

He stayed silent.

“What is it, then?”

Hannibal turned, planting a hand behind Will to lean over him. His expression was vacant, deliberately so. Will couldn’t help how his heart reacted to the closeness.

Will reached, and Hannibal caught his hand. He examined it, and the white scar over Will’s thumb. He pressed his lips to the jagged line and his eyes slid shut. Hannibal held there, breathing steadily while Will’s blood raced. The drugs hadn’t faded quite yet. Will could feel the pinch and tug of his scars, as if invisible teeth were gnawing at him.

It wasn’t altogether unpleasant.

“Hannibal,” his voice was unsteady. “Come here.”

Hannibal wrapped around Will until their edges blurred. Will focused on the breath at his neck, and the cool, damp hair against his feverish skin. He let himself be crushed. Blanketed beneath Hannibal, Will felt small. He rubbed his thumb back and forth aimlessly on Hannibal’s skin. Will pressed his cheek to the wet hair, holding Hannibal ever closer.

“I don’t regret meeting you, Hannibal.” Scarcely above a whisper, “I’ve never known myself as well as I did when I was with you.”

Will’s sense of self was dissolving in the heat. He didn’t know where Hannibal ended and he began.

On the cusp of his dreams, he heard Hannibal speak.

“I called to you. In my nightmares,” he said. “I could always find you there.”

Will pressed his lips to Hannibal’s hair and let himself drift.


	10. Out to Lunch

Will clung to Hannibal’s jacket as the wind rushed around them. His breath was loud in the helmet, rivaled only by the roar of BMW engine. With the lush trees around them, they could be in Virginia.

Hannibal reached back, tapping Will’s hand, and Will quickly wrapped his arms around him. They accelerated and cut on a knife’s edge through the countryside. The bike was so light on the pavement Will thought they might take off into the air. The trees flashed past and sunlight strobed in the corner of his eye. The wind battered the bike, and he fearfully pressed himself against Hannibal.

With Hannibal gripped between his thighs, all gaps closed. Nothing existed but them. Even as the wind tried to tear them off the road, their bones held on to each other.

Will felt the flutter of Hannibal’s laugh against his chest.

He finally showed Will mercy and slowed down. They passed a sign for Fontainebleau, and soon came upon the small, waking town. The streets were narrow and arranged in a maze of one-ways that Hannibal had a surprising familiarity with. He parked the bike, and they shed their gear.

The men walked together, bumping shoulders.

“Have you spent a lot of time here?”

“Only recently.” Hannibal said with a hint of satisfaction.

Hannibal had relayed very little of the information he had gathered from Milko, only to say that he was confident he would find the rest of the men who murdered Mischa.

Heavy in Will’s pocket was the dog tag of Petras Kolnas. He skimmed over it to feel the letters.

They came upon the Café de L’Este, already bustling with customers in their Sunday clothes. The calls and chirps of birds came from somewhere within. A waiter found a table for them near the café terrace, and revealed an aviary filled with small birds. They flitted in the sunlight.

“Ortolans. We had them in the woods near my home.”

They were listed on the menu as larks, to be roasted and consumed whole. Will listened to excited chatter at the table of men beside them as they ordered a round as if they were an exotic beverage.

Will couldn’t take his eyes off the cage. His mind was consumed by their sweet trills. “They smell the others cooking and still they try to sing.” He imagined the ortolans drowned in Armagnac, swirling lifeless when stirred.

Without drawing attention, Hannibal brushed over Will’s gripped fist. The touch was brief, but enough to bring him back. He steeled himself as the waiter appeared to take their orders.

Once the waiter was gone Hannibal told him, “Kolnas is using the name ‘Kleber.’ It’s on the license. He comes to check the till on his way to church.”

They ate their lunch and waited. Will was trying not to look nervous, and the strong French coffee was definitely not helping.

Will produced Kolnas’s dog tag and moved it in his fingers. “After this, they’ll know who’s hunting them. There’ll be no turning back.”

Hannibal nodded, but he would not be dissuaded.

“You cannot preserve entropy. It is its nature to gradually descend into disorder.” Hannibal wasn’t fatalistic in this, but contemplative. “Time begins at our earliest memory, and can only unfold. I have often wished…” He thumbed at the rim of his cup, “I have wished for it to reverse. I imagine the still frames of my life cut up and rearranged to play backward through time.”

Will could sense the significance of the cup—the porcelain against Hannibal’s skin—and the temptation to dash it against the floor.

“We don’t have that kind of agency,” Will said. “It is easier for a cup to shatter, than to draw back up again.”

“That may be so, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.” Hannibal curled a hand around his cup’s shape, not quite touching. “It is whole, breaking, and scattered all at once. It is in possession of all these things in this moment: what it is and is not capable of, and what it is for.”

“You see its potential.”

Hannibal continued, “I think of my earliest memory and project forward to what I imagine will be my death. I am contained by those parameters.”

 _And expand ceaselessly within them._ A shiver went through Will at the thought.

Before he could say more, Hannibal went still as stone. The conversations around them took on a swoony sound. Words were spoken through cotton. Glasses tinkling, silverware clattering, reverberating unnaturally. No one else would know, no one else, but Will could see the tendons of Hannibal’s neck pull tight. Then he looked away to his food, to allow Will a chance to see.

At the door stood a Germanic family of four. The father was in a new broadcloth suit. He was propping his daughter on one arm. His whiskers caught the sunlight and the little girl rubbed her stubby fingers over them. He put her down with a gentle admonishment, fixing his mustache, and went to the cash register. The mother put her son onto a barstool to clean something from his shirt. They were a handsome family.

“He has children?”

It took Hannibal a moment to realize Will wasn’t making the observation to instill sympathy. Will’s eyes on the children were cold and analytical.

“Kolnas the Prosperous,” Hannibal said. “I wonder who he remembers in his prayers.”

With her parents distracted, the girl wandered into the café. Her dark hair was styled neatly like her mother’s. The staff knew the child and greeted her as she went. Hannibal’s face hardened as she came close. Feathery blond hair curled around a familiar, plump face as Mischa stepped where Kolnas’s daughter should have.

She was drawn by the birds but stood deliberately apart from the cage, frowning. She had been scolded before. They were not pets to be played with.

Will whistled the ortolans’ little song and the girl turned to him with a sunny smile. Hannibal stiffened. His eyes locked fiercely on Will.

Will did another line of their music and the girl pranced over. She tried to do it herself, forming the shape to whistle but her shy laugh broke through. Will held the dog tag in his lap, glancing at the pockets on the child’s coat.

He offered her a strawberry from his meal, “You can do it.”

She reached onto the table to capture the treat. A small silver bracelet clinked against Will’s plate and Hannibal’s eyes went wide.

The girl was oblivious, attempting another breathy whistle as she played with the strawberry. When she finally succeeded, she beamed at Will. He chuckled and gave her head a tender pat.

He heard Kolnas from the entrance, “Where is she?” He spotted his daughter and sternly called her to him. She padded over with a mischievous giggle. The father didn’t linger on the man his child had been bothering, only long enough to offer a silent apology. Will waved, smiling kindly.

Kolnas held out a hand for his children to select a shining new coin for their church offering. Will stood with Hannibal close behind. They slipped out of the café well before the father could stumbled across Hannibal’s gift waiting in the child's pocket.

Will took Hannibal's hand when they were outside and squeezed. Hannibal glanced at him, knowing Will's question without him asking.

“She was wearing Mischa's bracelet,” he said.

—

Hannibal showed Will a list of names he had retrieved from the lodge where his family died with suspicious calm. It started with _Kazys_ _Porvik_.

“The Pot Watcher. I found his bones in the rubble, and their tags. They had amassed quite a collection. Lithuanian police insignia, Nazi SS bolts, Red Cross armbands…” He tapped at _Bronyz Grentz_. “This one is in Canada, or so Herr Milko would have me believe.” His finger dragged over Milko and Dortlich's names, bisecting them like a scalpel, and stopped at _Vladis Grutas_. Will watched the hairs on Hannibal’s arms raise, even as he kept utterly blank.

It was a deception, like the songs of the ortolans. They could be beautiful even as they screamed. Will remembered Hannibal as a boy, thrashing and crying in his sleep, and knew this man Grutas was at the center of his nightmares.

Will leaned closer. His voice drifted into Hannibal's heavy thoughts, almost ethereal, "Tell me."

He wasn't offering comfort. Will's eyes were dark and full of promise. There was no place for pity here, and that knowledge pierced through Hannibal with forgotten heat.

“After days of nothing, they caught a bird in the snow. He ripped it open and licked at the skin like a dog. Then he looked to us, smeared with blood and feathers, and said, ‘We eat, or die.’ For years, that was the last thing I could remember.” He then offered the paper to Will.

The hunger for retribution had burrowed so deep in Hannibal that Will could taste the blood. He took the list, just as he had taken the dog tag of Petras Kolnas. This was what Hannibal wanted. One by one, Hannibal handed over his secrets and allowed Will to peel away the caked layers that separated them. Step by step, he came into the darkness where Hannibal waited.

According to the recently disemboweled Zigmas Milko, Kolnas would lead them straight to Grutas. A car came for the family man in the night. Hannibal trailed it on the motorcycle from so far behind, Will was sure they had lost it more than once. They came upon a small commune within Fontainbleau called Nemours. Now back in a pocket of civilization, Hannibal used the traffic to disguise them and tracked the car from much closer. It stopped at a warehouse on the canal, but Hannibal zipped past without hesitation. He crossed the closest bridge and pulled over on the opposite side of the water.

Hannibal fiddled with the bike from where they sat, locking the details of the warehouse in his memory. He wouldn’t risk loitering for long. Kolnas waited outside for access, worrying the dog tag in his clammy fingers. As soon as he was admitted, Hannibal tapped Will’s hand to warn him and suddenly pulled away again.

Will watched the warehouse grow smaller and smaller behind them. He didn’t understand. They could have gotten closer and gathered more information.

The dim light on the bike poured into the pitch black mouth of the road. The trees flickered past as shadow figures, standing aside in detached judgement—witnesses to the monsters at work in the world. Will cradled around Hannibal as he pushed the bike to its limit. The engine wailed in Will’s ears.

Light suddenly pooled at the turn ahead—getting brighter. Will clenched at Hannibal, but he didn't slow down.

The oncoming truck appeared in the middle of the road, catching them in blinding headlights. Even as the truck veered, Hannibal moved to stay square in its path. Will gripped Hannibal’s stomach, shouting his name. Hannibal dipped suddenly into the corner, dropping them out of the headlights. Will’s knee brushed the pavement. The wind pushing out around the car’s front hit them like a wall, and scooted the bike an inch. The horn of the truck blared seconds late, sustained in slowed time.

They burst free of the turn, back into the black emptiness of night. Hannibal was speeding up again.

Will shouted in his ear against the rush of wind, “Hannibal! Stop!”

Will could feel Hannibal’s heaving breath finally settle at the sound of his voice. His death grip on the gas eased and the bike puttered.

He pulled them over, and Will leapt off.

“What were you thinking—!?”

He grabbed Hannibal’s shoulders, but stopped.

Hannibal’s distant gaze returned to Will and those red eyes glowed. The noose was tightening under those strong and steady hands, and finally Will understood.

Hannibal couldn’t linger at the warehouse because couldn’t let himself be tempted.

Hannibal was enjoying this. He didn’t want to rush.


	11. Old Habits Die Hard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive!

They circled the table of photographs and reports in a bizarre dance. Their hands hovered over the images as if they could emit heat. Milko’s hollowed out center, Dortlich’s meatless corpse. Hannibal reflected in Will, Will reflected in Hannibal. Will pressed his fingers on a close-up of Milko’s head. This one had been taken after Will’s intervention. The dribble of blood down Milko’s chin was smudged. Will felt the echo of the wetness that clung to him after he reached down the man’s throat.

Hannibal and Will were slanted toward one another always, ready for a subtle glance across the table. The tether between them was drawn taut.

“The Soviet embassy identified one of the men from a police ID card.” Popil spoke over them. “Once I saw it, I recognized them. They’re from the Nuremberg Trials.”

“War criminals,” Will said.

“They walked when a witness got acid poured down her throat.”

“What did the Soviet police say?”

“They are inquiring quietly in France. A Nazi like Dortlich on the People’s Police is an embarrassment to the Soviets. Even if he was retired. They have his file now from Stasi in the GDR.”

“Does the file mention any others?” Will pointed to a picture of the dinner table, tapping on the other place settings.

“Yes.”

“In France?”

Popil nodded, “At least one. Vladis Grutas.” Will was surprised at how the name rolled over Hannibal without even a flicker of a reaction. He had steeled himself well since their trip to Fontainebleau. “Zigmas Milko was one of his known associates. Grutas sawed off a rabbi’s head in Kaunas. Every few years I pick up the stench of him and then he’s gone.” The inspector handed Will a picture of Grutas staring at the camera dead-on. Will’s imagination supplemented a smear of blood and feathers on the man’s face without his prompting. Distantly he heard the crunching of tiny bones. “The Soviets will circulate his photograph. If they find him, the Sûreté is holding someone we might trade for him.”

“You want him that badly?”

“The Soviets might let the case wither and die just to save themselves the humiliation. I know Grutas. He would cooperate with them if it meant keeping his head.”

Hannibal added with some cheer, “And you would prefer it in a bucket.”

Popil rubbed the short hair at the back of his neck. “Or dangling from a rope.”

“They use the English drop, don’t they?” Hannibal asked the inspector, filled with innocent curiosity. “It’s not high enough to tear off their heads. If the hangman doesn’t boil and stretch his rope, they tend to yo-yo.”

Will felt the violent satisfaction coming off Popil in waves. He struck Will as the kind of man who removed the cover off the guillotine so criminals would see the blade as it fell. There again was that hypocrisy that Will despised. Popil was more than willing to accept brutality so long as it was in the name of justice.

Will asked, “And if the killer finds Grutas first?”

“Grutas will kill him.”

Hannibal’s lip twitched. “In that case, why not let this hunter do the work for you? Even if he fails, it might draw Grutas into the open.”

“There’s no evidence pointing us to Grutas,” Will ground out. “We shouldn’t rely on that kind of conjecture this early in the investigation. We might miss something important.”

Popil grumbled. His gut rightly told him Grutas was a target. Without the dog tags, however, there was nothing to support his suspicions. His frustration left a sour taste in Will’s mouth.

Will added, placating, “Investigate Grutas if you want, but don’t let it distract you.”

The inspector conceded with a sigh, then stepped into Hannibal’s path. “Did you learn anything from the bodies?”

“Nothing that wasn’t in the autopsy report. Dr. DeVrie did a thorough job.” The familiarity, the flattery, it all washed over Popil like a balm. “She’s waiting on the full toxicology report on Zigmas Milko, but they’ve already found traces of a sedative in his urine—as Will predicted.”

Both men turned to Will. He crossed his arms, gripping hard, and ducked behind the rims of his glasses. “An educated guess.”

Hannibal and Popil went over the initial reports together. Hannibal all but described the cocktail he had injected Will with only days before. He immersed Popil in his theories of how someone could acquire this kind of concoction, intentionally avoiding any mention of the commissariat and their use of drugs during interrogations.

Hannibal changed topic, offhanded, “I saw that you might suspect two killers at work?”

“It’s a possibility we are considering.” Popil drummed his finger on the table, staring at Dr. DeVrie’s findings.

“You’d think someone in the area would have seen them coming and going from the crime scene,” Hannibal said with an air of discontent.

“We’re still conducting interviews. With the profile Monsieur Graham’s created,” he gave a little nod to Will, “we should be able to narrow the suspect pool.”

“Considering the cruelty of these deaths, I anticipate the next bodies will be appearing soon.” Hidden behind Popil, Will glared at Hannibal. He continued undeterred, “We have three more chances. If the killer—or killers—are as passionate as we think, they may start making mistakes.”

“Three more.” Popil stared at the table covered in frozen images of gore. “Do you think they’ll stop…?” He turned to Will with burning intensity, “Will they stop?”

Will took a deep breath. The copper of blood was still thick in his memory.

“This is the consummation of a long held vengeance.” His gaze flickered over Hannibal, then down to his own feet. “There’s no way to know how this will… influence them. Their transformation is outside their own control.”

Hannibal stilled. His expression failed to land on anything human.

“I don’t know,” Will finally said, voice hushed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.” Popil was fixed on Will. He stood stiff, teetering on the edge of revulsion. Will swallowed heavily, “You’ll have more bodies. More than three.” He felt that elation creeping over that didn’t belong to him. Or did it? He shook his head and pressed his glasses on his nose, wavering toward the door. “I’m sorry, I’ll… I’ll wait outside, Hannibal.”

Popil watched him leave, eyes wide. Hannibal followed after, but Will shut the door between them. When Hannibal faced Popil, he presented the perfect picture of worry. His mind hummed, clocking Popil’s reaction. Potently aware of Will’s absence.

“Please… I would ask that you limit Will’s involvement with the case.” He hesitated, “I fear what will happen if he gets any closer than this.”

“He was like this before…” The inspector puzzled through his words, “At his lecture he said it was intuition developed over time, but that’s not what I saw at the crime scene. He spoke as the killer—like he was breathing it in.”

“Imagination is Will’s gift. He wants to think of it as a purely intellectual exercise and, in its narrow definition, that’s what it is. Beyond that, it is pure empathy and projection. He can assume your point of view, or mine, or those of our killers. Will’s thoughts are no more bound by fear or kindness than Milton’s were by physics. He is both free and damned to imagine anything.

“That’s how they used him in the war. That’s how he saved lives.”

Popil didn’t speak for some time while he sussed out the implications. “You saw it?”

Hannibal solemnly nodded, “I saw glimpses. I can’t tell you more than that.” When Popil bristled, Hannibal set his jaw and said firmly, “Can you say you were unmarked by your service, Inspector? Can you say you don’t carry secrets or regrets? Will was sent into dark places—alone. The ones who held his leash didn’t care if he came out whole. Why else do you think he’s so gifted at catching these killers?”

Popil had never heard Hannibal come so close to raising his voice. “How does he do it then? How does he catch them?”

Hannibal walked past to the table. He ran his tongue over his teeth, thinking of Will’s taste. Of Enrikas Dortlich—faintly acidic. He wondered if Vladis Grutas would be as gamey as the man himself. He put a thoughtful hand on the picture of his offering. The red mirror and the mound of flesh.

“One can only see what one observes,” he said, “and one observes only things which are already in the mind.”

Popil loomed in his periphery. “What kind of violence is Will Graham capable of?”

Hannibal smiled sadly over his shoulder. “Even I couldn’t say.” After a moment he confessed, “I owe him everything, Inspector. I don’t care about the lives he might save, I care about his life.”

“You introduced us.”

“So he could teach. That’s who he is now.” He opened the door. “You’ve said it yourself. The profile he made will help you find these killers. Please, leave it at that.”

Feeling the definitive end to their conversation, Popil sighed.

“I am willing to help you how I can, as always.” Hannibal extended his hand to shake with Popil. “Good evening, Inspector.”

The inspector let him go. Hannibal strode through the hallways of the commissariat light on his feet. He pushed open the front doors to find Will seated on the steps.

“Thank you for waiting, Will.” The man scowled up at him. “Let’s go home.”

—

Will was silent in the taxi and all the way into the apartment. He went to the window to stare at Hannibal’s unfinished painting.

“Burn them,” were his first words in the quiet.

Hannibal waited, trusting Will to elaborate.

“I know you have sketches of Grutas and the others. You have to burn them.”

“Are you anticipating a surprise visit from Inspector Popil?”

“Yes. And so should you. If you were smart you’d get rid of the dog tags, but I know you won’t.”

Hannibal walked to his desk and rifled through a drawer. “I have every intention of returning them to their respective owners.” He produced a small stack of crinkled paper. His sister’s killers stared out from the shadows and smudges of charcoal. The black stained his thumb when he touched them.

He had been fine, more than willing to do as Will wished, until he held the papers in his hand. Suddenly the idea of their faces curling in the fire made him feel hollow and sick. He had clawed through dirt and hell to find them again. Sifted through the small, fragile bones of starved animals, piece by piece—gathered baby teeth in his hand. All plucked from the stool pit. He had captured these men and their nightmarish voices in a form he could lock away for safe keeping.

“You don’t need them anymore, Hannibal.” Will came to stand behind his shoulder.

“Will you ask me to wait for the inspector's trail to run cold?”

He put a heavy hand there and squeezed. “No. I won’t.” He reached for the papers. “Let me?”

They weighed next to nothing in Will’s hand when Hannibal passed them over, but their significance was not lost on him. He took the metal bin from beside Hannibal’s desk and sat it in the middle of the floor. There were a few discarded papers in it already. He pulled up the chair from the window and shuffled through the contents briefly while Hannibal fetched a matchbox.

Will lit one of the loose papers in the can and the small glow illuminated the room. He took the first sketch and lit the corner. He held it in his hand for Hannibal to watch as it slowly caught fire. He held it until the last possible moment before dropping it.

“It’s dangerous to bait Popil.”

“Inspector Popil is my friend.”

“And that somehow spares him from your machinations?” Will lit another. Zigmas Milko. “I don’t know what game you’re playing with him, but it’s what will get you caught.”

“Would you kill him, if it came to that?” Hannibal smiled faintly. “Or would you turn me in?”

Will’s head snapped up. He flinched when the flame reached his fingers and what was left of Milko floated into the bin.

“You want Grutas to see you coming. You want him to yo-yo at the end of your rope." He didn't need to look at Hannibal to know he was right. "However if you’re intent on involving Popil, there are better ways.”

“Such as?”

“Give him something more than bait.”

Will said no more. He burned Dortlich, then Kolnas. He held Kolnas over the fire until the flame darkened the center and lit. He stopped at Grutas. Will stared into the man’s ravenous glare and felt his hackles rise. Popil was right. Grutas was a survivor. That made him unpredictable. Dangerous.

Hannibal came to his side as if to give him permission. Will let the paper fall whole into the small pyre.

“Will you allow me to replace them?”

“With what?” Will half laughed, “Medical trophies?”

Hannibal retrieved a sketchbook from his desk and sat on the bed. “With you.” Will went rigid in the chair and Hannibal chuckled. He flipped open the book. “Not for long. Just until the fire goes out.”

The scratch of the pencil and the simmer of the fire were faint against the Paris backdrop. The café outside was busy now. Music and voices traveled through the open window. Will tried to relax but he could feel his own grimace.

“What do you propose we do?” Hannibal asked.

Will watched the fire as it dwindled, distracting himself with the slow traveling glow. It soaked the paper with a liquid black edge. The pale blue and yellow flame gave off very little heat, but Will held his hand over it all the same.

“Let me loose.”

Hannibal’s pencil stopped.

Will smirked up at him, eyes glinting in the low light. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? To see me untethered?”

He tapped the can with his foot and it sent up a harmless puff of red cinders. What remained settled in the bottom and Will watched the last of the light go out.

Long after the ashes cooled, Will stood and sauntered to Hannibal. What stared out of the sketchbook was another mess of incomplete images. His silhouette in the chair. A study on his eyes on the fire. His glasses propped on his nose. His knit hands, the knobs and creases of his fingers.

He pointed at Hannibal’s painfully accurate portrayal of the crease in his brow and snickered.

“Was I moving too much?”

Hannibal shook his head and set down the pencil. “Drawing you from life is an unexpected challenge. I’m out of practice. In my memories, moments slow and stop at will.”

“Can I see them?”

Hannibal held his gaze. Those dark eyes were open pools to Will where desire and apprehension stirred together. Hannibal wordlessly brushed past to the desk. Will trailed at his leisure.

Hannibal brought out another stack of papers and books. Most of them were from the night the Lithuanian rebels attacked their camp. The memory of Will starring down the barrel, eyes cold. Blood splattered on his face.

“We should probably burn these too.”

Hannibal stilled mid page-turn to cover the stack with a possessive hand.

It was a surprisingly youthful gesture. It probably shouldn’t have been so endearing, considering the content. Will put his hand over Hannibal’s. The scar stood out pale against his tanned skin. Hannibal leaned into the desk, eyes half lidded.

“Do you really not know, Will?”

It took Will a moment to realize what he was asking. _Do you think they'll stop?_ Would they go up in a similar blaze? Would they be consumed by Hannibal's revenge?

Will shook his head.

Hannibal turned in his arms. “Inspector Popil is afraid of you. Do you know why?” Will firmed up, but Hannibal was soothing. "It's the same reason your platoon feared you." He ghosted closer so his lips could graze Will’s skin. “You have no motive. Not one that they can recognize. You are Mercy waiting within the borders of the wood. The lenient beast with bloody claws and swift-dispatching jaws.”

The heat of Will’s flush radiated between them. “Stop.”

“‘In righteousness he doth judge and make war.’ Are you going to war with Grutas, Will? Ever the good soldier?” Hannibal framed his hips, bringing Will against him. “Will you show me again?”

Will grabbed at him, voice torn between warning and pleading. “Hannibal—”

“Let me see you.” His eyes were shining, prickled with red. Hannibal breathed against his skin, barely audible. “Will. Promise me.” His gaze dropped and he kissed Will before he got an answer.

A long forgotten sorrow came rumbling through. The old machine was already coming to life, painting Will a picture of strategic violence. Already speaking to him in tongues—constructing the masks he could wear, the people he could control. How he could slip through the cracks and into the snake pit.

Hannibal was right. He would rage war. Rage and rage.

“I’ll show you,” he panted against Hannibal’s mouth. “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal is a sneaky little bitch and he'll never fucking change. I left him and Popil alone in a room for TWO SECONDS, and that was the immediate result. Also, it's time to bring back Dark Will! It's been too long.


	12. Fire's Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: references to sexual abuse/torture (It's pretty brief, but I don't want to surprise anyone.)

Will shoved the next crate into place and tied it down before trudging down the barge’s boarding ramp. He wiped his face on his sleeve while walking back to the warehouse. Daylight was waning. Beneath ruffled hair, Will set a glazed look in his eye. The stench of old booze coming off the other dockhands was strong enough that Will didn’t need to do much more than dirty up his undershirt to blend in. Having worked a full day in the sweltering heat, it was hard to tell any of them apart. He was just another barfly laboring after a handful of petty cash.

The dock’s two supervisors were antsy to finish loading the boat. There was a blond around Hannibal’s age, Dieter. The other was Mueller—burly, dark-haired, and covered in tattoos. Dieter was the one who pat Will down before he was allowed near the warehouse that morning. Mueller, in the meantime, sat ominously to the side cleaning his gun. Will vaguely recognized it as a drilling: an ornate combination rifle given to German pilots in case their planes went down somewhere remote. It was meant for hunting rather than combat, but it looked deadly enough in Mueller’s possession. He probably claimed it from their stolen goods.

“Victor Gustavson” was the owner of Satrug Inc., and the pseudonym that Vladis Grutas was using in France. Gustavson moved everything from ex-SS morphine to stolen art. He had other warehouses where the merchandise was sorted and boxed, but this was the easiest to infiltrate. Will took a look at his fellow dockhands, blubbering and stumbling from one task to the next. No one here was bold enough to swipe anything, or sober enough to ask questions.

Ultimately, Will didn’t need to know what Gustavson was selling. He was just here to kick the hornets’ nest.

It was like shaking off the dust. His instincts had been molded for this. Lingering in the belly of the beast, willing the devils to strike. Hannibal called him Mercy waiting in the wood and Will couldn’t deny how right that felt. He was the cold Mercy that preyed on predators. In these moments Will knew the truth he often denied. Problem-solving was hunting. It was savage pleasure, and he was born to it.

Will returned to task and made a quick sweep of the warehouse. Will watched a worker painting “U.S. Post Exchange, Nueilly” on the boxes before they were moved to the boat. Sitting behind the man was a neglected can of paint thinner. Will eyed it with a spark of inspiration. Despite the shadow in his gut, whispering words of violence and blood, the best missions Lieutenant Colonel Crawford had sent him on didn’t require it. Sabotage could be just as effective.

The warehouse was still jammed with boxes, even after all the dockhands’ work. Will cut through to the front of the building where a guard was eating a sausage with his pocketknife. A cigarette smoldered in the ashtray. The guard glanced expectantly at Will.

He slurred, “Paint thinner?”

The guard thumbed around the corner to a metal supply cabinet filled with other flammable looking canisters and tanks. Will looked over the shelf, mumbling under his breath. Seemingly unsuccessful, Will left empty handed and went back the way he came. He strolled past the painter and snatched up the can without slowing. He flicked off the red cap into his hand.

No one was listening for the near silent splash of liquid. In the winding path back to the supply cabinet, no one saw him slosh thinner onto the passing crates. Will capped the empty can before stepping into view of the guard. He fought a grin as he went to the cabinet and sat the can next to an assortment of other flammable containers. He poked his head from behind the metal door to thank the guard. The man nodded back and his cigarette bobbed between his lips. With any luck Will might not need to start the fire himself. Accidents happen, after all.

Back on the quay, Will spotted a deckhand struggling with a crate. He seamlessly joined in to help. No one had missed him. Mueller was cleaning his nails with the tip of his knife, and Dieter was making another trip to a houseboat docked behind the barge.

It was Dutch-built double ender with low deckhouses. The top of the cabins and deck were covered in greenery and flowering garden boxes. He had noticed the houseboat right away and watched several people come and go from it, all too far for him to catch their conversations. It looked harmless enough but there was something about it that itched at Will all day.

He glanced over the bumbling dockhands and made his decision. If an opportunity wouldn’t present itself, he’d make one.

Will wandered along the concrete landing to the barge’s stern, groping at the front of his pants as he went. There were telephone and power lines running to the houseboat. The low cabin windows were curtained. The ventilators on the deck, however, were open.

He faced the water, fumbling with the front of his pants like he was about to relieve himself. Ears twitching for anything he might catch.

There were voices, men. Private and purposefully lower in pitch. Their tone made Will’s gut clench. There was a scrambling sound, as if someone was being pushed down the hall. The back of Will’s neck tingled.

Then he heard it.

The pained cry of a woman.

His eyes flicked to the side, blown wide under his cover of wavy hair. Suddenly a woman’s face appeared at one of the lower portholes, pressed against the glass with a shriek.

Her agony ripped through Will with the burn of a brand. Eyes bloodshot, face flushed with horror and shame. Then a thick hand pushed her away and jerked the curtain closed.

“Hey!” With accented French almost too thick to understand, Mueller shouted at him, “Go piss somewhere else!”

Will shrugged at Mueller with a grumble. He fussed with his zipper and walked to the far side of the warehouse, closer still to the houseboat. He put up a hand on the wall of the building to lean, blocking his business from Mueller’s view.

Voices poured from the depths of the hull.

“Dieter! Where is Dieter?”

There was pounding somewhere within, then angry footsteps coming to the deck. Will carefully watched over his shoulder as Dieter was shoved off the boat by a slight man with pale blue eyes. The man was in a clean suit, cigarette hanging from his lip. He deliberately smoothed his hair to calm himself as Dieter stumbled off the ramp.

His mouth twisted in a scowl that Will instantly knew as if the man had leapt to life from the pages of Hannibal’s sketchbook.

He spoke in English, “Dieter, you bruise their faces, split their lip, the money goes down.”

This was Vladis Grutas.

“I want you to go to Paris tomorrow. Kolnas has found me a Bosendorfer piano. The best. Bring it to the house.” Grutas walked past Dieter, effectively dismissing him, then to a waiting car.

Will’s heart was pounding in his throat. The man’s cruelty hung around him like miasma. Every inch of him, from those dead blue eyes to his calloused fingers, was soaked in the echoes of morbid delight. Will could feel Grutas’s thumb pressing down on those around him—the men who worked under him, the women on the boat—with a suffocating weight. Pinning them to the spreading board, carefully preserved until they no longer turned a profit.

Will struggled to control his breath. He didn’t dare move until Grutas’s car pulled away. Dieter scuffed his foot on the concrete, muttering to himself, and went back to the warehouse. Will shook off and followed. Dieter projected his displeasure at the deckhands, shouting at them to hurry up. Will shuffled to join in, blending with the crowd.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. All Will meant to do was cause a scene big enough that the officers in Grutas’s pocket couldn’t cover it up. Set a good fire. Get in, get out. Once Popil knew about the warehouse, he’d be on the hunt. Grutas would be forced to retreat to his hideaway in the woods. His men would focus on moving their remaining assets to more secure locations and dodging the police, too occupied to properly protect the safehouse. Then they’d have their chance for Hannibal’s private reunion.

The trapped woman’s face flashed in his mind, and with it a fresh wave of disgust.

Will rubbed his pulsing temple. What would he tell Hannibal?

The dockhands lined up for their pay when the work was done.

Mueller thrust an envelope of money into Will’s chest with a thump. His hand was gruff and heavy, his silhouette in the setting sun completely overshadowed him. Will felt the flicker of animal fear. Between fight and flee, Will knew what he wanted in his roiling gut.

He turned on his heel without a word and went back through the warehouse. He followed the unseen trail of paint thinner with new eyes all the way until he was out the door. Something feral had been left behind, snarling up into Mueller’s deadeye glare.

He trudged to a small park where he had hidden his leather jacket. The back of his neck was still tingling. Will pushed the hair out of his face and donned the dark jacket and his glasses. He straightened his back and let all that bottled-up rage bloom in his eyes. In seconds, Will shed his dockhand disguise.

With fists clenched in his pockets, he walked the long way to the northern bridge. He ghosted along the stone railing. The warehouse was on display where the canal took a lazy turn.

Hannibal sat on a bench at the center of the bridge with a sketchbook propped on his knee. His focus darted between the paper and the water, completely immersed.

The air vibrated between them in a near tangible cord pulled taut when Will approached from behind.

“How’d you like the show?”

Unbothered, Hannibal continued his work. “I would have enjoyed a closer view.”

“I’m sure.” He leaned on the back of the bench. Hannibal’s recreation of the architecture was stunning in its detail. Nothing like his unfinished portraits of Will.

“I knew you would be at home near water,” he said offhanded, “but it is a new experience entirely to see in person.”

Finally, Hannibal looked back. His dark eyes skated over the salt stiff hair at Will’s brow, the firm set of his jaw, the sweat soaked collar and chest of his shirt. The muscles of his forearms were swelled and firm, freshly worked. His skin glowed from its day in the sun. Hannibal took it all in with hungry eyes.

Will didn’t have time for this. Not anymore. “I saw Grutas.”

Hannibal shut the sketchbook with surprising delicacy. “And?”

“He’s trafficking people. He has them on one of the boats.”

Hannibal glanced at the darkening sky as if Will were commenting on the weather.

“Is he still there?”

“No, he’s gone.” Grutas’s blue eyes pierced out from the shadows, his aura hung heavy on Will shoulders. “I have to get them out, Hannibal.”

“You could leave them for the police.”

Will sat beside him. “No. Whoever’s watching them will cast off as soon as there’s trouble.”

“How many are there?”

How many settings will they be adding to the table? How many bodies between them and the vengeance Hannibal sought?

“Three I know of, plus whoever’s on the boat.”

Hannibal played with his pencil absently. “How will you do it?”

“Sneak the women off the boat while the guards deal with the fire.”

“Use it as a distraction, then.” It sounded weak when Hannibal said it. “I doubt anyone in Grutas’s care will be strong enough to run very far.” Hannibal’s attention on the word “care” filled Will with another surge of loathing. “Is there a way to the main road?”

“Other than through the warehouse?” was Will’s immediate, sardonic reply. “There’s an alley but it’s fenced off and topped with barbed wire.” The obvious answer gnawed at Will, stubbornly unspoken. He knew he was only delaying the inevitable. Will pinched the bridge of his nose. “If I had a truck maybe… But I don’t know when he’s going to move them. It could be tonight, for all I know.”

There were too many “ifs”. The guards could very well abandon the burning warehouse and rush straight to the houseboat. Give up on the stolen goods and prioritize the more incriminating cargo. What Will still couldn’t understand was how Hannibal hadn’t picked up on trafficking beforehand, considering how much time he had spent spying on them.

Hannibal mused aloud, intentionally poking holes in Will’s plan. “A truck would be difficult to attain on such short notice. Unless you are willing to steal one.”

"And leave even more of a trail for Popil?" _No, thank you._

“You’ll have witnesses either way.”

It was this dismissal of the prisoner’s lives that sparked something years-old in Will, and outrage reared up from the dead snow. The victims in the houseboat were suddenly the unknowns—the collateral damage of the war left atop the frozen, impenetrable ground. Corpses that his platoon shuffled wordlessly past. Abandoned. They lifted from the snow on strings—stiff puppets twitching from where they attached to Will’s fingertips. The menagerie dangled in front him over the canal. Their images reflected on the wavering water.

And here beside him was the one he couldn’t kill implying they would be leaving witnesses and not saving victims.

Never again. He would never turn away again. No matter the cost.

“I won’t abandon them, Hannibal.”

Hannibal watched the shifting sands play on Will’s face with a surgeon’s curiosity. He stared through Will’s eyes into the gray brain matter searching for the ticking cogs and mechanisms. The strings he could pluck.

Finally Hannibal asked, “Have you killed anyone since the war?”

Will had seen this coming, but the topic didn’t unnerve him as much as he imagined. Not like it would have when Hannibal was a child.

“No.” He was already half resolved to break that ten-year streak. “They’re well-armed,” Will needlessly added.

“Has that stopped you before?”

A little thrill shot up his back. “No. It hasn’t.”

Will would kill them all. Clear the boat and disable the engine to be safe. The young Dieter would be easy to handle. He probably had little practical experience with a firearm and wouldn’t pose much of a threat. Will had seen very little of the guard at the warehouse door, but he was almost certain the man wouldn’t think anything was wrong right until he heard gunfire. Or the place burst into flames, whichever came first. But all of Will’s visions snagged on Mueller. Him and his goddamn shotgun.

Mueller was a _huge_ problem. He was a seasoned survivor like Grutas. He wouldn’t concern himself with friendly fire if it meant smiting his enemy to pulpy bits. Will would want a gun before he got anywhere near Mueller.

“It might be safer if we work together,” Hannibal offered amid his musings.

Will’s ticking brain clicked into place with the realization and stopped. He turned to Hannibal with a seething glare.

“You knew about the boat.”

He answered without an ounce of remorse, “I did.”

“And you didn’t mention it before because…?”

“It didn’t seem relevant to your plan.”

“Relevant?” Will gripped his scalp and breathed through the flare of anger. “It’s obvious you and I have a different understanding of that word.” Should he be surprised? Really? This was exactly where Hannibal wanted him. He huffed out a dark chuckle, “All this to get a better view of the action?”

Hannibal radiated eager anticipation even as he remained expressionless. It made Will want to deny him even more.

“You’re not coming,” Will said bluntly. “If I’m killing them all anyway, I won’t need to rush. I can set the fire whenever I want.”

Hannibal’s voice draped around him, casual as could be. “You’re operating under the assumption those in the warehouse won’t realizing something is amiss. What are the chances of your survival if you are cornered on that boat? Alone.”

Slim to none. They both knew it.

Will snarled regardless, “Whatever the odds are, I won’t risk them protecting you.”

“Then don’t.”

One image flashed after another: a gun to Hannibal’s temple, the slash of a knife, a shotgun blast to the chest. Those intense eyes draining of life, dilating into black emptiness.

Will’s voice burst out, “ _No._ ”

Hannibal stroked the cover of the sketchbook rather than comfort Will. Hannibal didn’t think deliberate manipulation through touch would be well received. Was it deliberate? Or was this impulse genuine?

The force of Hannibal’s gaze softened.

“I’m a killer, Will. The same as you.”

That soft, low voice gripped at Will’s chest. Sleeping behind those gentle eyes was the shadowed beast that slashed open a man’s throat when he was only a child. That decapitated another at thirteen, and gored two trained killers without getting so much as a scratch. Those beautiful hands had long since been christened in blood.

Hannibal’s bloodlust blended with his. The projection of their combined violence unfurled in Will’s imagination and swirled with the promise in Hannibal’s red speckled eyes. And yet somehow, always, it ended with Hannibal’s hands closing around Will’s throat.

Will dug in his pocket, retrieving his knife.

He bounced the hefty thing in his hand. Opening it, he scraped the edge against the pad of his thumb. He tested its bite, tempting the skin to split. How far was Hannibal willing to take this game? How far was Will willing to play it?

Until the boiling pot went still. What then? What waited on the other side of this?

Will snapped the knife shut.

“Come if you want, but you’ll do as I say.”

Hannibal smiled pleasantly, “Anything, Will.”

—

A hand shot out of the dark, grabbing his face and curling him in like the coils of a serpent. The blade was sliver of cold on his neck. He barely felt it go in. The air on the gap was frigid, stinging bright white—that’s what shocked him. He reached to block the air, the pain, but his arms were lead at his sides.

He slumped forward as spreading heat soaked his chest. There was a distant gurgling sound. Was it Will? No, no. It was Grutas’s man sinking in his arms.

Will pulled the draining body back into himself to keep it from crashing loudly into the water. He stepped up to the deck garden and rolled the man down onto it. The muted thump shook the stiff stems of burnt orange daisies and vibrant asters. Floppy anemones and poppies crowded overtop, concealing the body from view while blood pumped out into the soil. Some had splashed on the carpet of blue flowers, otherwise there was no obvious sign of violence.

Will wiped his hand and knife handle free of blood.

The man’s arm was crooked in an unnatural way, uncomfortable. The sight twisted in him. _Unfinished_ , Will thought. He bent down into the flowers, moving the still warm body. He pushed the head back, exposing the deep gash from his knife—a black chasm in the night.

Now there was no mistaking the man’s fate. Beauty and death slept here in the same bed.

Will swallowed dryly, remembering himself and where he was. There was no movement from the warehouse in the distance. No sounds from below deck. All he heard was the buzzing of wings, the only movement was slick oil spreading like a spill in the corner of his eye.

A shadow stood by the open cockpit door, undulating with the evening breeze. Will walked to the door and past the image of death.

Will kept the light off in the cockpit, but he hardly needed it. He familiarized himself with the helm and cracked open a wooden panel on the back of the station to expose the rotary at the back of the wheel. With a little fiddling, he pulled out the well-greased steering cable. He locked the throttle in neutral for good measure. When he was satisfied, he stood and span the useless wheel.

He looked to the doorway, but it was empty. The devil was gone, or perhaps it had never been there. Onto the deck again he found the dark cloud swarming over his victim. A ghostly touch brushed a flower and in a blink it was Hannibal.

He knelt among the bed of flowers as if in prayer. He drew a finger up the rough stem of a poppy, staring into the black center. His hair dipped over half-lidded eyes.

Will strode over, pulling him to his feet. They couldn’t linger here.

He moved silently along the deck to the cabin doors. They were still open, thankfully. He could feel Hannibal trailing closely down the short steps and into the excessively decorated galley. There were a few leather chairs and a fully stocked bar with a display cabinet.

The stairs deeper down were lit by an exposed yellow bulb. Moths circled it, darting in front of the closed door at the bottom. Will slipped down and peered through the small round window into a spacious bedroom. Empty. He recognized the windows from the bow of the ship. This was where he’d seen the woman before.

Will readied his knife and opened the door with caution. Will kept expecting Dieter to pop around a corner any second. If he had more time, Will would have found blueprints for the houseboat’s make and model. At least then he’d know what doors led where. The uncertainty set his teeth on edge.

There was a lone chair at the edge of the room and a large bed at the far wall with the sheets thrown haphazardly on it.

A limp foot dangled off the side. A woman was collapsed there face down.

Will turned for Hannibal, who was already on the approach. Her eyes were slit open, but sightless. He knelt beside her to check her breathing and feel her pulse.

He whispered to Will over his shoulder, “It’s weak.”

Will investigated the room. There were two more doors, on each side of the stairs. The left was wide open on a narrow and dim hallway, lit by ominous red lights. There were cabins down the center of the boat, and what looked like a cage door at the very end. The lights there were brighter. Will could see bunkbeds.

He recognized the smell of stale clothes. The faint scent of urine. Standing in the doorway, Will could hear faint sounds echoing on the steel walls. Repetitive thumps. Grunts. Blood pounded in Will’s ears.

Will turned away, walking to the other unexplored door. He had every intention of going room to room down that hallway once their exit was clear.

The door to the right opened on a closet. His heart leapt into this throat at the implements hanging on the wall. There was a neat case syringes there and what Will assumed was a half-used vial of morphine.

Meanwhile Hannibal snapped his fingers quietly by the woman’s ear. She writhed weakly, shrugging to protect her face and neck. Her cheekbone was a grisly blend of color and her lip was split. Hannibal peeled back her eyelid. He didn’t have a light, but Hannibal didn’t need it to know the response wasn’t good. He felt through her hair, prodding her scalp until he found a telling lump. He turned her onto her side, propping her head with the bundled blanket, in case she vomited in her semi-consciousness.

Will glanced at the chair in the room. The stains on the floor. Fragments of the nightmare scene pieced together without Will’s consent. Muffled screams, the creaking bedframe. His imagination supplemented the straps that likely held this woman in the chair while—

Will stormed to the chair, grabbing it by the back. For a split second he considered smashing it against the wall. As if that would somehow burst the helpless and resigned agony swelling in his chest and saturating the air.

The sound of aggressive movement summoned the woman from her daze. She groaned fearfully on the bed, pulling in her legs and curling over them.

They both froze. The hall went eerily silent. They heard a door slowly creak open into the hallway.

The footsteps approaching were heavier than Will expected. Not Dieter, then.

“Gassmann?” A bass voice called.

Will saw the barrel enter the room before Mueller. The man locked on Hannibal instantly. Will threw his knife as Mueller lifted the butt of the rifle to his shoulder. The blade sunk into Mueller’s forearm and he cried out, eyes searching wildly until they found Will. Instant recognition purpled his face with rage.

Will charged Mueller into the wall and the rifle dropped. Will kicked it sharply, sending it skittering away. Mueller’s massive hands encased his throat instantly. Sparks danced in Will's rapidly darkening sight and he scrambled for the knife handle. Will found it and ripped the knife free to stab under Mueller’s ribs. He aimed up, wrenching the knife loose and gutting into him again. He heard Mueller sputter and his grip loosened. Will tore free and slammed Mueller’s head repeatedly into the wall of the cabin.

Mueller’s deadweight took Will down to the ground in time to see another face in the doorway. Still not Dieter.

The man came fully into the room with wide eyes. Drunk or high—he was fatally oblivious. Hannibal stepped behind him unseen and took hold of the man’s arm when he reached for his firearm. Hannibal strained the arm at a harsh angle and pivoted to slam the man into the ground, landing with a knee high on his back. Deft hands gripped the man’s head and twisted.

The crunch of bone and sinew shuddered through Will.

The man went limp and all was still.

Mueller was hunched over and bleeding out on his legs. Hannibal shoved him off and helped Will to his feet. Will stared at Mueller’s crumpled form while Hannibal carefully examined his throat.

“Nothing broken.”

Will wiped the knife off on his pants and pocketed it. He grabbed the rifle from the ground as well as the other man’s pistol. He gave it to Hannibal.

“Don’t use it unless you absolutely have to.”

Hannibal nodded, looking much too pleased with himself. “As you wish.”

Will on the other hand was a shaking mess. He checked over Mueller’s drilling as a diversion. There were two triggers and a sliding toggle to select the shotgun or rifle rounds. Still fully loaded. The metal at the break action was engraved with ornate foliage. The figure of a stag was captured in relief. On one side, the stag bellowed with its head held high. On the other, the creature was collapsed on its side. Its antlers tangled around it like a nest of thorns.

Will could feel tines prickling his skin where he seated the gun against his shoulder. He wouldn’t be caught by surprise again.

He stepped into the hall, peering into the windows as he went. Only one of the rooms was occupied. The door was open, sending cold blue light into the hall. Will recognized the figure of a young boy huddling in the corner. He held his hands over his ears.

In that moment, Will almost walked back into the cabin to flay the two dead men open. He wanted nothing more than to kill them again. And again. Skewer them with every weapon he could find. Will was sick with regret at how quick their deaths had been.

It was done, he told himself. They were already dead, and Will didn’t have time to spare.

At the boat’s stern was a cage with more people in it than beds. Most didn’t even look up.

This was the last unchecked part of the ship. There were no more dark corners for Grutas’s men to hide in. A weight did lift from his shoulders then. The captives were safe. The police would find them. They would survive.

He and Hannibal walked off the houseboat. Will figured most of the paint thinner had evaporated by now, so he had prepared a backup. Waiting for them on the concrete landing was a Molotov cocktail filled with gasoline, right where Will left it.

He produced a book of matches and extended them to Hannibal who only stared at it, pursing his lips.

“You wanted to help.”

Hannibal hummed, but took them all the same. “This seems inelegant.”

Will almost laughed. “Fire’s fire, Hannibal.”

He strode ahead of Hannibal, pointing to the column of crates on the left before veering right. Will stuck to the wall of the warehouse and edged quietly to the guard’s station where he and Dieter were chatting.

Then Will heard the bottle shatter and the roar of fire catching on fumes.

“ _Du hörst das?_ ” Dieter’s mouth was half full. Will could see the glow already. Perhaps there had been more paint thinner left than he assumed.

“ _Ich denke—_ ” The guard jerked to standing, knocking his chair over. “ _Scheiße!_ ”

“ _Hol Mueller!!_ ”

Will pulled the first trigger the instant the guard turned the corner and the 12-gauge slug carved a hole from his chest the size of a fist. He was blasted into the wall.

Will heard Dieter’s panicked scramble against something metal and the fumble for his handgun. Will eased his head out just enough to check before Dieter’s first shot. The bullet whizzed past into the wall, way off the mark. Dieter was backed up against the supply cabinet.

The fire licked up to the roof. The supply cabinet was going to catch any second. Will heard the hissing first, then a whoosh of fire along the floor. Dieter cried out, dashing for the door.

Will came out cover and pulled the second trigger. The slug caught Dieter in the shoulder, spinning him off his feet. The young man fired wildly from the ground, shock turning his legs to jelly. The cans in the cabinet started exploding one by one and sprayed out flammable liquid in an ascending fireball. The windows atop the wall shattered. Will shielded his face as glass rained down.

Crying for his life, Dieter abandoned the gun to pull himself to his feet by the door handle. Will flipped the rifle to grab it by the barrel with both hands. He batted Dieter’s head with the buttstock just as he opened the door. The young man dropped out of the warehouse like a sack of rocks. Will walked to stand over him, panting lightly. He drew his knife and went to his knees. With a clean cut, he slit the unconscious Dieter’s throat.

He stayed with the young man. Barely older than twenty, only a few fledgling wrinkles. It was the face of someone whose life had just begun. What did this face look like when Dieter was beating those women? Pity died in Will as swiftly as it was born.

A foot shifted in the dirt ahead of him.

Will scrambled to right his gun and stared down the barrel at Petras Kolnas’s blanched face. He was standing beside his car, obscured behind the open door, keys in hand. At this range however, Will wouldn’t miss.

His finger held heavy on the trigger.

Kolnas’s fear seeped into him. It wasn’t fear for himself—for his own life. It was for his wife. His children. Kolnas was soaked in fear and an aching acceptance that he had shared his last moments with them. There was nothing more he could do for them.

Will flexed his fingers, regripping the trigger. The buoyant smile of Kolnas’s daughter floated to the forefront. That happy picture was the last thing Kolnas wanted to see before he died.

Will fired.

The rifle bullet lodged in the roof of the car.

“Go,” he said. “Forget this. Go back to your family.”

Kolnas’s deer eyes went even wider as his memory pieced together. Will saw the instant Kolnas recognized him.

Will was out of bullets, but Kolnas didn’t know that.

He gripped the gun and bellowed, “GO!”

Kolnas ducked into his car, slamming the door. Will stood from Dieter’s body and watched the car pull away onto the road.

He half expected Hannibal to be behind him, but he was nowhere to be seen. Hannibal’s motorcycle was still waiting by the barbed fence they had climbed.

“Hannibal?” he called.

There was no answer. There hadn’t been another gunshot, right? There was no one left.

“Hannibal!”

He stared into the cave of fire and smoke. The original fuel had burned up, but the boxes had caught now. He could hear the glass goods shattering inside the crates and the low groans of wood. Could something have fallen? Trapped him?

With a deep breath, Will dove in.

He watched the stacks of crates for any leaning and followed the safest path, calling Hannibal’s name. Listening for the slightest human sound. The ceiling was mercifully high, the air scalding but still somewhat breathable.

The fire was blinding. It skittered across the floor like something alive. It traveled through the smoke, smooth as if underwater, pouring up the walls and across the ceiling. The adrenaline pumping through Will warped his vision. The blackening wood surrounding him splintered. It reached for him in the form of black tines.

Looking behind him, his path out was obscured. He stood alone in a sea of fire.

“Hannibal!”

There was coughing ahead. Labored and wet. Will scrambled forward, reaching for the silhouette in the flames.

The figure squared up to face Will and stood erect, taller than Hannibal and as fierce as an awakened bear. One thick hand clutched his side, stained black.

Mueller stepped through the curtain of smoke, blood bubbling in his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Murder!! Finally! The end of the fight is on the way.
> 
> I love how Hannibal and Will have different fighting styles. It's so fun to write. Hannibal is so fucking dainty while Will's over here like PUNCHPUNCH—blood splatter, pure chaos.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and thank you for the very sweet reviews!


	13. The Spreading Stain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! Thank you for your continued support and patience! It's a nice long one, full of.... surprises. For me especially.

Mueller grabbed the barrel of the rifle and booted Will to the ground. His ribs screamed as he took a knee—breath stolen—but he did not let go. When Mueller yanked the gun, Will went with it. He punched Mueller in the gut over his knife wounds and let Mueller stagger back with his prize.

Mueller’s eyes were dizzy with lack of oxygen when he leveled the barrel at Will’s head. He clicked the trigger on an empty chamber and Will smiled.

The man let out an enraged, gargling roar. He was wheezing, but not from smoke. Will must have punctured something back on the boat, a lung probably. He hurtled at Will and slugged down the rifle, smashing through a crate when Will dodged to the side. Bright cinders exploded into the air. Will managed to slash the top of Mueller’s thigh in retreat. Not deep enough.

Will would circle Mueller if he could, but they were caged by stag antlers. Webbed and weaving. They prickled at the back of Will’s neck and trapped the men together. He held the knife between them at the ready.

Hot air and smoke was filling the warehouse. At this rate, they’d both suffocate.

Mueller swung again with power, but he was sluggish. Will easily leaned out of range. He didn’t need to feign desperation as he surged forward. He slashed rapidly, over and over across Mueller’s fingers, until the rifle fell. Will sliced Mueller’s blocking hands and forearms, reckless. Not trying to win. Mueller’s instincts kicked in. He pulled Will into him, grappling for the knife. He pinned Will’s arm and kneed his stomach.

The knife clattered on the floor and they both sank to scramble for it. Mueller swept it up, and Will fumble to get out of reach. He wasn’t fast enough. Mueller grabbed him by the collar and dragged Will almost off the ground as he stood.

Gritting his bloodstained teeth, Mueller towered triumphant over Will. He raised the knife overhead, just as Will thought he would. Mueller’s fingers were sliced to ribbons, grip slick on the handle. He stabbed down and Will’s hands flew up.

Weak and injured muscles couldn’t compete when Will twisted the blade free.

The sliver of metal turned and stabbed Mueller in the throat.

The whites of Mueller’s eyes glistened in the fire. He gasped around the metal, wet sounds in his throat. Will rammed into him and Mueller hit the ground like a downed tree.

Will swatted away Mueller’s hands and put a foot on the man’s neck below the knife. Near euphoria coursed through Will as he tore it free, releasing a spurt of blood. He floated up again with a spatter on his cheek. Mueller’s bloody hands tugged at his pants uselessly. Will watched with satisfaction as blood pump onto the floor until it was only a trickle. He smeared his toe in the puddle and waited until the light faded from Mueller’s furious stare.

A smile was on his face all the while.

Then he sensed other eyes.

_Let me see you._

There stood Hannibal wrapped in fire, transfixed. He lowered the scrap cloth that had been covering his mouth. How long had he been there? He held the pistol Will had given him at his side, forgotten. Hannibal didn’t even have his finger on the trigger.

Only now did Will’s legs feel weak. Hannibal dropped the gun and came to him. He stabilized Will at his elbow and led him through the red haze.

Out the door, Will got a lungful of free air. Hannibal took him to the bike as sirens and lights flashed in the distance. How much time had passed? Would they be seen leaving? Hannibal shoved the helmet on for him and Will climbed onto the back of the bike automatically.

He watched the road fly under his feet. He didn’t even feel the bike take off but held onto Hannibal for dear life all the same. The air was painfully cold as if he were still burning. Black tines needled from all around. A prison or an embrace, Will couldn’t be sure. Eventually he shut his eyes and panted at the back of Hannibal’s neck with rasping breath, sucking in the smoke on his skin.

When they stopped, it took Will a moment to recognize Hannibal’s old university. He left Will to lean on the iron gate while he hid the bike. Will clutched at his chest, fighting for a full breath. His gut was screaming at him, _The street’s too wide._ He was exposed here, but Hannibal was back soon enough with his ring of keys. The gate made little sound when they entered. For all Will knew, Hannibal had greased the hinges himself for such an occasion.

Their footsteps echoed off the high stone walls as they crossed the courtyard and disappeared into one of the buildings. Cold blue caught on the glass in the corner of Will’s eye. Barely enough to leave shadows. He couldn’t even see his feet. The silhouettes of what he hoped were statues lined their path, like a council of dark angels. Meanwhile, Hannibal moved in the pitch-black as if there was some light—some effervescence—in the seams of the stones visible only to him.

He caught Will when he tripped on the stairs. They went stiff in the dark. Momentum that had carried them thus far, everything they had left behind, came crashing back.

The blazing building, the ricochet of gunfire.

Hannibal took Will’s head in his hands. He dug his fingers in like Will was born of clay meant to conform to able machinations. There was a shallow puff of breath across Will’s lips before Hannibal let go and took Will’s hand to lead them on.

Upstairs, Hannibal pushed through swinging doors. He bypassed the lights. Will didn’t know why until he saw the first row of shelves holding glass jars of organs and specimens soaking in yellowing liquid. He ducked his head too late. Raw as he was, the incisions split him open. Pieces of Will were taken and pickled away. Squirming within glass. Hannibal placed himself purposefully to block Will’s view.

He pulled Will through another set of doors into what could only be the anatomy lab. A green glow from the neighboring room stretched shadows on the tile floor and cast a sinister glint off the medical tools that had been left out.

Blue-white fluorescents flickered on one by one when Hannibal hit the switch. He locked the doors behind them for good measure. In the center was a clean operating table, but Hannibal ignored it. He went instead to a small alcove with a desk to the left. He gathered a few supplies onto on a metal cart and rolled it to the table.

Will couldn’t bear the silence any longer.

“You saw—” His throat was raw, “You saw Mueller go into the warehouse.”

Hannibal dug through a cabinet and grabbed a pair of thick blankets.

“You didn’t shoot him.” Will wasn’t shocked or offended. _Don’t use it unless you absolutely have to_ , he had said. Hannibal had done exactly as he was told. “You wanted to watch me kill him.”

He came to Will with his free hand out. Will took it. His skin was sullied with ash and blood. He hadn’t noticed. There were dramatic palmprints on his pants. God, he hoped no one had seen them.

Hannibal led Will into the green light of the next room.

A cadaver tank took up most of the floor. Hannibal sat the blankets down on the sealed lid. There were shadows inside, but thankfully the sickly green water was too murky to see through. Hannibal went to the wall and opened a hefty sliding door to what Will thought was a furnace. He shut it again and adjusted a few dials, keeping a close eye on the temperature gauge.

Will could see the corner of Hannibal’s frown—though it hardly fit the definition by normal standards. It was strange to read him so well.

“Did it not turn out like you hoped?” Will leaned against the tank. “Have you been disillusioned?”

Ever the fisherman, it made Will smile when Hannibal jerked to attention.

“I’m here, Hannibal. Where you wanted me to be.” Will took out his knife and sat it on the lid of the tank as an offering. “Where are you?”

Hannibal approached and brought the scent of smoke with him. The fire they had shared. He tugged the leather jacket off Will’s shoulders and stripped the sleeves, griping the muscles as he went. There was a moment where Will thought Hannibal would trap him there with his arms tangled and legs pinned against the cadaver tank. It reminded him too much of their first “heart-to-heart.”

As soon as the jacket hit the floor, Will skated hands up Hannibal’s chest to feel his drumming heart. Steady, but accelerated. _Can’t hide that, can you?_ Will thought of the reel from the polygraph test Popil had shown him. What was different now? What worked against Hannibal here—a guilty conscious? A lapse in self-control? Or a happy mix of both.

There was something else under his hand in Hannibal’s breast pocket. Will stared into Hannibal’s eyes as he pulled out the small bloom of a poppy.

Hannibal had gone back to the houseboat.

Hannibal watched the fire he started in the warehouse grow. He heard the gunshots within and turned away from Will’s necessary carnage. While it thrilled him to witness the merciless precision of a hardened soldier, it was not the radiant image Hannibal longed to see.

He went to the houseboat. His footsteps resounded on the wooden deck. He came to the corpse swathed in wildflowers and knelt before it.

This was the first, he thought. He passed a hand over the blooms just to feel them, in disbelief that it was real. This was the first life Will had taken of his own volition, outside of war. Hannibal may have given him purpose, but the act and delight in killing belonged solely to Will. Fragile and brutal, like this cradle of blooming life.

Hannibal pinched the stem of a poppy, red as blood, and could not be parted from it.

Pained grunts came from below deck followed by a struggle up the stairs. Hannibal stepped back and watched from behind the helm. Mueller slammed into the doorway to keep from falling, breath ragged. The fire reflected in his eyes and coursed through him. It brought out a strength the dying man should not possess. He stormed toward the warehouse with his silhouette black against the flames. His shadow stretched endlessly behind like a lashing tail.

Hannibal stepped into that shadow, hypnotized by the shifting scales of life and death.

He caught Will’s hand around the flower. Pleading in his own way for it not to be crushed.

Hannibal was _afraid_.

“Did you think I’d take it from you?”

“You delight in depriving me of what I want,” was Hannibal’s answer.

Will leaned close with the bloom between them, “And you delight in unsettling me. You pick and prod.” Will left it in Hannibal’s hand, gripping his wrist instead. Will squeezed him callously before releasing. “I’m not a specimen for you to experiment on, Hannibal. I bite back.”

A genuine, youthful smile brightened Hannibal’s face. “I would expect nothing less.”

For a moment Will had forgotten what Hannibal was. Trust was fragile here. Not yet offered, not yet earned. They were in this freefall together. Unmoored, and in that way liberated. He was smiling too, edging toward delirium.

“We will need to dispose of your clothes,” Hannibal said as he sat the flower beside Will’s knife, declaring it an exception.

Will glanced at the furnace that he now realized was a crematorium. All the evidence would be incinerated.

Hannibal found the hem of Will’s shirt. His tone was professional. “Are you injured?”

“Nothing serious.”

“Let me look at you.”

Hannibal helped him strip the shirt and Will groaned at his sore muscles. He ached all over. Hannibal’s hands skirted over his skin to check for burns and other wounds. It was hard to tell what was hiding under the ash.

The touch teetered at the very edge of clinical, deliberately so. Will hesitated at Hannibal’s shirt for a breath then pulled to untuck it. He started unbuttoning. He attempted the same detached air when he slipped Hannibal out of his shirt but moved with too much urgency.

“We should burn yours too.”

Will yanked him closer by the belt and Hannibal hissed, “Yes.”

“Then again, you hardly have any blood on you.” Will openly palmed the front of Hannibal’s slacks.

“Better to err on the side of caution.”

Will’s frenzy was contagious. Hannibal undid his pants for him while he hastily cast off his shoes. They would have to burn too, caked over as they were. Hannibal hoisted him onto the lid of the tank and fit tightly between his legs. He was half focused on removing Will’s clothes, half distracted by the teeth at his jaw.

“Will. Let me treat you.”

“I’m fine.”

Hannibal’s sunk his fingers into Will’s ribs where Mueller kicked him. His startled shout echoed in the room. Hannibal observed with poorly concealed arousal making Will flush hot. He continued to feel around the edges of the swelling, thoroughly testing the tender spot. Will’s body throbbed with the pain, but somehow his wires got crossed and lit him up. He flinched, gripping Hannibal between his thighs. The lid of the tank creak beneath him.

“Nothing broken,” Hannibal said calmly when Will’s breath shuddered out.

Then Hannibal and the pain were gone. Will caught himself on the lid when he sank.

Illuminated by the green light, Hannibal removed and folded the last of his clothes. Not self-conscious in the least, he knelt close at Will’s feet—closer than necessary—and collected their items from the floor. Will froze to the spot when Hannibal held his knee and brushed lips against his inner thigh. He didn’t linger, however. Hannibal walked calmly to the hatch and opened the blazing mouth. He fed in their clothes in piece by piece.

Hannibal’s nudity before the crematorium sent Will spiraling back into the crumbling warehouse. The crackling swelled and reverberated into a cacophony while flames curved over Hannibal like a film. The light caught the curls of hair on his chest and those peeking past the twist of his hip, glowing yellow and white. Smooth and coarse textures alike ghosted across Will’s fingertips following the licks of fire.

Hannibal shut the hatch and the image was extinguished.

“Come here, Will.”

That wandering gaze gave him chills. Will was drawn regardless, a fly to the web. Hannibal had him stand over a grate in the floor while he uncoiled a hose and sprayer hanging from the wall.

“No shower?”

“Not one I have a key for.” Hannibal sprayed at the grate to test it. He turned down the pressure so it gushed over his hand.

Will laughed, already shivering. “I’m having a hard time not thinking of myself as one of your cadavers.”

Hannibal met his eyes at that. With a serpent’s speed, he fixed Will at the back of his neck and put the sprayer to his chest. The icy water shocked through Will like a current. He dug into Hannibal’s arms with nails—shoulders scrunched to his ears. Hannibal was not deterred in the least. He ran his hand long Will’s neck and shoulders to break apart the filth with pressure alone then pass the cold over to clear it away. There was absolutely nothing clinical about his touch as if to prove his point. He sculpted with the pads of his fingers, memorizing every line and contour. Will’s eyes shut in reflex.

Unobserved, Hannibal smiled. For now, this was his.

Every inch was his. For now.

“You have some burns, but no blistering. To an untrained eye they will be indistinguishable from normal sun damage. Please inform me if you experience any painful sensitivity.”

Will had a rebuttal primed when Hannibal combed through his hair—a warning before the water came. Will’s scalp bristled and he gripped Hannibal harder as it poured over his face and head. He was sure he could feel the plates of his skull clack together. He breathed through it until his shoulders sagged. Will tipped forward and blinked at the ground with heaving breaths. Hannibal fingered through his hair long after it was clean and free of knots.

The grime gradually dissolved, Will’s rational thoughts with it. The scent of Hannibal settled like wine in Will’s belly. He felt impossibly hot, even as the frigid water fell and splattered between them. It poured over the erection hanging heavy between his legs that they both seemed to notice at the same time. Christ.

“We’re almost finished, Will.”

As if nothing were amiss, Hannibal leaned Will’s head back to dig fingers into his scruff—presumably to clean his face. Will stood straight to dodge him.

“I can do that myself.”

“Can you?”

The smear of black on Hannibal’s arms from Will’s hands said otherwise.

Will shoved his hands under the water. He fixated on the filth that stayed on him like grease rather than how his nerves simmered and itched under his skin.

He glanced at Hannibal’s skin and the handprints he’d left, painfully aware of their proximity. What would it be like to spread it more? Taint the unmarred planes of Hannibal’s chest. Hook into the curled hairs there and grip him closer.

Will swallowed hard and snatched the sprayer when the hands were clean enough. He roughly wiped his face, shutting his eyes to the look that raked over him from his blood-spattered cheek to his cock. Will hid in his hand, flaking off the dry and crusted blood with his nails. It was hard not to think about his past, and if any fleeting moment of intimacy held a candle to this. Had Will ever let anyone close enough to compare? How could he? Who would risk wandering the halls of his vulnerable mind only to find the devils lurking there? Intimacy was double-edged, it always had been. But that’s what Hannibal wanted: to flush out the insatiable self that Will kept so buried. And it wasn’t just Hannibal. That need clawed at Will like a waiting scream.

Will cleared the water away and shook his hair, taking a step back—as if Hannibal would let him create distance. Hannibal took his wrist and tugged him closer, the sprayer along with him. Will blinked through droplets.

He thumbed over Will’s lips, holding there to feel the pulse racing in them. They were chapped and cracked by the burning air and a day in the blazing sun. Will’s hesitation—the mask he had let slip in Lady Murasaki’s kitchen—was chipping away.

Will’s mouth fell open on a shaky breath and Hannibal swallowed it down. Hannibal watched Will with a low gaze even as he kissed, deepening it until Will’s mouth went soft. He craved more of that heated skin and, as if to answer his silent prayer, Will’s arm came scalding around his back to bring them together.

Hannibal grazed fingertips down Will’s stomach. He brushed over the trail of hair before firmly cupping him. Will braced himself on Hannibal’s shoulder, clutching the sprayer. The water slapping the ground did little to hide the sounds Will bit back.

“Will,” he called.

He met that fervent stare. In a desperate effort to distract him, Will kissed and teased with teeth until Hannibal gave in. Hannibal fondled him mindlessly while Will took over, licking into his mouth, tongues curling. The sprayer finally clattered to the ground, forgotten. Will tangled into Hannibal’s nape and angled their mouths. He rocked into Hannibal’s hand and reawakened his exploration. Hannibal grazed a nail from his perineum, over his balls, and up his length. Will’s knees faltered. Too quickly Hannibal had him gripped in hand. Will cried out at the first tug, too hurt to be a moan.

He reached between them to try and stop it. “God, Hannibal. Wait—”

Hannibal continued undeterred with harsh tempered strokes that had Will aching in seconds. The bright flashes behind his eyes were coming too fast. He clawed at Hannibal, panting into his shoulder.

“Slow down, just—Stop—” He fumbled again for Hannibal’s wrist. “ _Stop_.”

He did then. Hannibal’s hand disappeared entirely. Will crawled back from the edge and waited the spasms of near orgasm to ebb. He realized it wasn’t just his own ragged breathing he heard. Hannibal’s eyes were bright and dazed. His gaze flickered across the features of Will’s face, but he didn’t dare move.

At a loss for words, Will kissed his slack and panting mouth. Hannibal kept still as Will planted them one by one, to his lips, his jaw, the heavy pulse at his neck, murmuring Hannibal’s name as he went. Will took in Hannibal’s arousal for the first time and was strangely reassured.

Hannibal wanted him. Hannibal wanted all of him.

Will palmed Hannibal’s cock, spreading the trickle of precum. He lined Hannibal’s erection with his and barred an arm at Hannibal’s lower back, pulling him in to slide together. He fisted the head and let Hannibal thrust into it once on reflex. Hannibal rested his forehead against Will and let his eyes close while Will stroked and wrangled sounds out of him. Will’s breath caught in awe of the control he had somehow claimed. He picked up the tempo to feel Hannibal tense in his arms. His own cock slid on Hannibal’s stomach had sparks of orgasm brewing at the back of his throat. The tight pocket of heat between them, the helpless roll of Hannibal’s hips—it was almost enough to send him over.

Will pumped steadily root to tip, feeling how Hannibal’s stomach tightened, how his legs flexed at their own volition. Will understood now the appeal of watching and how pleasure could move from one body to another in waves. For once Hannibal wasn’t so strong and sure. He ran trembling fingers along Will’s neck and coaxed him to look up. He kissed Will with a broken groan in their mouths meant to be his name. Will scrambled to get closer, deeper. Anything to chase that.

Then Hannibal grappled around him, too tight, and banished the space left between them. Will felt the brush of his own hand and the shattering threat of orgasm. He adjusted to cage their cocks together, no longer able to do more than hold on as Hannibal rutted against him.

That slick heat finally undid him, and his vision went black.

The room felt too big—like he might shatter and never gather again. But there were ravenous kisses under his chin, bites and sucks at his jaw. Dragging Will back into himself. Hannibal’s eyes were wild but with intent. He dragged his still hard cock against Will’s and wrenched a cry out of him. Will felt Hannibal’s nails at his back. There was nowhere to go trapped in Hannibal’s arms. He bowed into him, thrusting against Will until he came and striped their pressed stomachs.

Will’s limbs buzzed, bones aching. He was lightheaded enough he might buckle right then and there if it weren’t for Hannibal. He nosed along Will’s jaw, kissing tenderly. Will held on loosely and stared at the ceiling. He let himself revel in the tingling, pleasurable aftershocks as he pet along Hannibal’s back. Hearts pounded off-beat, occasionally falling into tandem. When Will moved he felt their release on his stomach and heated in a late flush. He hid in Hannibal’s hair to mumble a slew of curses. Hannibal chuckled.

Hannibal did pull away eventually. He took the sprayer up from the ground and adjusted a dial on the wall. Will was cringing before the water hit him, but it was shockingly warm. Pleasant, even. Will glared daggers at Hannibal who ducked his head to laugh. Will cracked a smile instantly and joined in. Their hands gently roamed on one another while they cleaned off, shaking with laughter and exhaustion.

Hannibal wrapped them in blankets, and they returned to the anatomy lab. He had Will sit on the operating table and took an earnest look at his injuries. He found a few burns as he said, but nothing serious. He applied a soothing topical and bandaged them in no time.

The ring of bruises forming around Will’s neck, however, were more noticeable.

“A shirt collar will cover the worst of them.”

“And the rest?”

“Ice to start.” He said, putting his cool hand on Will’s neck. “After some time, heat and compression.”

Will brought it to his cheek and leaned lazily into it. Fatigue had finally caught up with him. Hannibal placed a chaste kiss at his temple before he left to produce a stack of clothes from the desk drawer. Will wished he could be surprised by Hannibal’s preparedness.

Hannibal shed the blanket to dress, tossing it beside Will on the table. In the harsher light of the lab, Will could see the faded scar on Hannibal’s collarbone. He remembered when it still looked fresh and purple in the cold. One of the medics in his platoon had recognized it. His skin had frozen to something metal and torn. A chain around his neck.

How long had Hannibal been under Grutas’s “care”? Will had never asked.

“What now, Hannibal?”

“The inspector will keep Grutas occupied, allowing us to move as we wish,” he said lightly. “You’ve bought us time.”

“Time until what?”

Hannibal silently tucked his shirt and buckled his pants. Will scooted off the table and came to him. He smoothed the shirt at Hannibal’s shoulders.

“You wanted Grutas to know you’re coming for him. He does.” Will spoke in low notes, “But that’s not enough, is it? You want him to feel as alone as you did. You want him starving and cold. Left to sup on his fear.” Will could practically see Grutas fleeing in the dark wood. Searching over his shoulder with wide eyes. Clinging to his wounds and stumbling through the underbrush on raw feet. “The meat will be sour with it.”

Hannibal pushed the blanket off Will’s shoulders so it fell heavy on the floor. The room wasn’t cold per se, but Will shivered.

“You’ll devour him anyway. Take what you’re owed.”

Hannibal nodded, eyes severe.

“What happens after you kill them all, Hannibal?”

Hannibal took up Will’s shirt and helped him into it. He admired the view for a moment before starting to button. He brushed his lips over Will’s.

“We have time.”

Will rolled his tongue in his mouth to taste blood that wasn’t there. Not yet.

He’d let the subject drop for now. He stepped away and snatched the pants. He paused at the sleek leather shoes hiding underneath. Far too formal for the rest of his ensemble. Will wordlessly yanked up the pants so he could try them on. He shifted his weight in them, flexing his toes. They fit perfectly.

“These are nice,” suspicion in his tone. “They’re my size.”

“Hm.” As if it were only a coincidence. “They would go well with a suit.”

He finished dressing with a sigh. Hannibal’s whimsy took many forms. Dragging Will to some formal event was less dangerous than other alternatives—if Will chose to indulge him.

The night was still dark when they walked out of the building. Hannibal locked the gate behind them, but Will stopped him when Hannibal headed where the motorcycle was hidden.

“They’ll be looking for the bike. You should leave it for tonight.”

Without missing a beat, Hannibal walked to the street and waited. “I’ll take you to the hotel, then.”

It was close, but Will shook his head. He looked down he opposite way that would take them to the bridge and across to Hannibal’s flat.

Hannibal just smiled.

“It’s a long walk, Will.”

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I stuck those horny bastards in a shower together, what did I honestly expect? Stop making me SWEAT.
> 
> Hope you had fun! See you next time!


	14. Watch Them Scurry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! Listen folks... As you know, this whole pandemic thing is a real bummer. I took some time to myself and am grateful for it! I've done a lot of reading, doodling, movie watching... It's been super nice. I hope you all are taking care of yourselves. Take the time you need and do the stuff you love! Or do nothing! Give yourself a big squeeze. Read some fanfiction. Support each other. Whatever makes you happy.
> 
> Happy New Year! And in case you want a good laugh, I posted a one-shot in November that I thoroughly enjoyed writing.

With a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel, shapes flashed past Kolnas’s windows. Air whistled across the bullet hole in the roof of his car.

Those clear blue eyes behind the rifle came at him in the dark.

_Go. Forget this._

Kolnas screeched to a stop, breath heaving in the sudden stillness. He slammed back into the seat to shake away that primal fear. Then again and again until he was roaring and thrashing in his car. Raging at his brush with death. Raging at the kind, smiling man who had spoken to his daughter in the café. The same man who planted Kolnas’s dog tags in her pocket.

_Go back to your family._

The face that had once eluded him, framed in dark curls, was now burned into his mind. That bitter scowl, the bright and knowing eyes.

Kolnas knew he should run. Get his family out. Pack them up, leave the country. Change his name—again. Flee from the shadows closing in on Grutas—and himself—herding them to blazing destruction.

Dog tags rattled in his ears. Their names pressed in metal, branded into their souls. They could drown themselves in documents and false identities, but they couldn’t break free of that ball and chain. What they had done. God, what they had done…

No. No—It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault. The girl was dead anyway. She would have died—Kolnas did what was necessary to survive. They were wild dogs, trapped in that cabin. Buried in the merciless winter, battered by the freezing winds and sleet. Kolnas did what he had to. They all did.

His stomach wound tight with horror and wroth. Who was their reaper? Who plucked their tags from that dead snow?

Kolnas killed the idling engine. He stepped out onto pavement to gaze at his home. The windows were dark, but he could imagine them lighting. His wife would walk into view in the children’s room to pull the curtains closed. He imagined their voices ringing through the house. The sounds of water splashing as she washed their two beautiful children. His love of them softened his icy heart, and he could almost smile. Then he heard a metallic click. He saw a gun held to her head with the trigger gripped tight. Those piercing blue eyes watched him from the doorway. The man stood over his wife as she sobbed quietly and cradled their children beneath her protective arms.

_Forget this._

Kolnas grit his teeth until they creaked. He stared into the bullet hole on his roof and let it swallow him into blinding, blackened rage. Mouth screwed tight, he threw himself back into the car and started the engine. He tore away from his home, his family, with spinning tires.

He drove out of town and deep into the woods. The hole in the roof was a boiling kettle, screaming louder and louder as he accelerated.

The estate was in a frenzy when Kolnas arrived. News of the fire had reached them, and Grutas was scrambling his resources to deal with the situation. Kolnas walked through the chaos, a rock untouched by the stream, dog tag clutched in his hand. As he ascended the stairs, he could hear Grutas’s voice booming. He followed it into the bedroom.

Grutas was sitting on the edge of his bed in his robe still soaked from his interrupted bath. He shouted slurs of French and German into a phone. One of his women was huddled naked in the corner. Her cheek and eye were swollen. Kolnas wordlessly took a towel and walked past to drop it at her feet. She covered herself but kept her eyes on the floor.

“The Gustavson name is blown. They’ll find everything. Our _arschmade_ in the Sûreté says there’s nothing he can do.” He exploded with a kick, sending a knocked over ice bucket shooting across the room. The woman on the floor flinched as ice scattered. Then Grutas was paced again, fuming into the phone, “We have to clear the warehouses. Move all the women.” He gripped his hair. “Ivanov owes me. He’ll mark the decent-looking ones for DPC Bremerhaven as deportees. We’ll collect them from the port later. I don’t want to hear from you until the other buildings are cleared.” He slammed the phone down, hissed and grumbled as he took a swig of dark liquor.

Then he stopped. He looked at Kolnas with hawk’s eyes.

“What woke you, Kolnas? Did someone call?”

There was so much—too much to put into words. Kolnas chewed his tongue in his mouth.

“I was in the area. I saw the smoke.”

“You went to the warehouse?”

Kolnas nodded shakily.

Grutas caught fast on Kolnas’s distress and zeroed in. “What _else_ did you see?”

Kolnas tossed the dog tag onto the bed.

“It was the same man from the café. Brown hair, American. He killed Dieter right in front of me.” He added with conviction, “He’s trained. Ex-military.”

Grutas’s eyes lit up strangely—not at all what Kolnas expected. “American? He spoke to you?”

He jerked a nod.

“And?”

Kolnas mulled the words before admitting, “He let me go.” The insult—the shame of that truth burned in his belly. The American wanted him to know he was on borrowed time.

“You could recognize him?”

“Yes.” He rubbed his beard roughly. “He must have the other tags. If he goes to the police—”

“He’ll what? The tags prove nothing.”

Grutas leaned against the headboard, unaffected. If anything, he was more at ease now than moments earlier. He lounged there while he puzzled. Meanwhile, Kolnas gripped shaking fists at his side. Blood pumped at his temples.

Grutas repeated casually to himself, “If he had your tag, he has Dortlich’s and Milko’s as well.”

Kolnas bellowed, red faced, “You told Dortlich to search the lodge for them years ago!”

“Poked around with his picnic fork, lazy bastard. It was an American you saw. You’re sure?”

He nodded fervently. Having heard him speak twice now, Kolnas was certain.

Grutas ran his tongue over his teeth, sucking audibly. Finally he said, “There’s an American working with the Sûreté. The _flic_ said our friend Popil brought him to where Dortlich and Milko died.”

Kolnas’s throat went dry. With the Sûreté?

“You think what—You think that American did it?”

“I think if he was going to turn us in, he would have done it by now.” Grutas stood smooth as a cat and went back to the phone. “I’ll have Aden send a picture. If it’s him, he won’t be a nuisance for long.”

“A _nuisance_? Killing Dortlich could not have been easy, he probably shot him in the back—” Kolnas’s voice cinched tight with fear, “He knows my family.”

“From what Aden said, you’d be lucky if all he did was shoot you.” The man was grinning as he said it. Kolnas’s blood ran cold. “Dortlich was probably dead when he was skinned, but Milko was alive when the bastard pulled his organs out. You know how the _flics_ found them? They were at the dinner table waiting to be served pieces of themselves.”

Another table spread before Kolnas, lit by the crackling fireplace. The copper tub shone in the dark, rattling as it boiled. There they gathered, filthy and crouched over the fire, staring hungrily at what was churning in the murky water.

All Kolnas could utter was, “He knows… he knows. _How?_ ”

Grutas still had that savage smile on his face. “We’ll have to ask him, won’t we?” Grutas took a swelling breath. “Go back to your restaurant, Kolnas. Keep feeding the _flics_ for free and they will keep tearing up your traffic tickets.” He shooed Kolnas with his hand even as he started dialing. “We will do the rest.”

There was a knock and Dortlich’s replacement Svenka came in with more news. Grutas pushed the woman with his foot, never looking at her, and she hurried out. Grutas beckoned Svenka in even as he spoke fast French to track down their contact within the police.

Kolnas staggered through the halls shaking worse than before. He thought of the American. The desperation in his voice when he told Kolnas to run. Run.

Kolnas sat in his car, hands gripping the wheel once more, stubborn in their strength. _No_ , he thought. No. Whoever he was, this poisonous man would be the one to burn. Not them. Kolnas wouldn’t allow this life he had fought so hard for, that he had gone through all chasms of hell to protect, to be stolen from him.

Blind in his hate and his obstinate will to life, Kolnas drove to his slumbering home with a steady hand.

—

Officer René Aden took a nervous drag of his cigarette while he waited by the payphone. There was a growing pile of butts at his feet. When he wasn’t smoking, he gnawed at his thumbnail.

Morning was breaking finally. The blue hued clouds were sullied by an ominous streak of black. Across the canal were the incinerated remains of Gruta’s warehouse. It had been utterly destroyed along with three neighboring buildings. On the other hand, Grutas’s houseboat and barge filled to the brim with stolen goods were left perfectly intact.

Inspector Popil had called in favors from the neighboring districts to get as many officers as possible to tear the boats apart and use all their resources to flush out Grutas’s smuggling ring. With the extra manpower, Popil was already making frightening progress. René knew he wasn’t the only one on Grutas’s payroll. Even if it all came to light—even if it did—there were enough of them that they could bury it. Popil could be swayed for the right price, René was confident in that.

René nearly jumped out of his skin when the phone rang. He snatched it up instantly.

“Operator?”

The voice was gritty over the phone, but unmistakable. “Aden, you sack of shit. Where have you been?”

René sneered back, “Waiting for you. The fire brigade just left.”

“And Popil?”

“Celebrating an early Christmas.”

“What do they have?”

“On you?” René huffed a laugh. “Enough to hang you a dozen times over. I suggest you take a long vacation—”

“I’ll see your balls in a jar if you don’t shut your fucking mouth, Aden. Who blew up my warehouse?”

René flinched like a kicked dog, whimpering and babbling his excuses. He had made a point to be one of the first officers on site and told Grutas as much. “There were at least two men. I was there when we got the girls from the boat. I spoke to them myself. They didn’t give us much to go on.”

“How were they?”

“The girls? Quiet. They saw more than they’re letting on, but they won’t talk.”

“They know better. Let me know when they’re released. What about Popil?”

Grutas was well past playing games. René answered him straight, “More obsessed with finding you than your clients.”

“You’ll keep him busy.”

“Tell me who’s on your bad list and I’ll send Popil their way.”

Grutas spoke through cold laughter, “Just call me if he gets close.” Then he asked, “Is that American still with the Sûreté?”

“The American?” René scoffed into the phone, not following. “He does his little lectures, but he’s not around so much anymore.”

“What lectures?”

“He’s FBI something or other. A professor… ah, he teaches crime scenes.” René scratched his head. He had been forced to attend but tuned out the second the projector turned on.

“He was with Popil before.”

“Yeah, yeah, he was the inspector’s little pet for a while. Popil took him everywhere.” Grutas waited on the other line for Grutas to say more. René shrugged, “I don’t see him much anymore, like I said. Why? What about him?”

“What’s his name?”

It took him a second to remember. “Will Graham.”

He could hear Grutas writing. “I want you to keep an eye on him. Where he goes, who he goes with. Get pictures and names.” Grutas paused before adding on impulse, “Send me some pictures of Milko and Dortlich from when you found them while you’re at it.”

“For what? A mural?”

“Just do it, Aden.”

“ _And_ watch the inspector?”

Grutas was quiet for a moment. Just static. “If it had been me in your place, and I heard the warehouse was burning, you know what I would have done?” His voice graveled close in René’s ear. “I would have gone to the boats, shot the women, and burned the barge myself.”

René’s stomach dropped. His hand was clammy on the phone.

“But you didn’t. And now _I’m_ paying for it.”

The phone booth was suddenly claustrophobic. He glanced out of the misty glass. A car lingered on the street across from the booth. A pair of men on stood close on the bridge. Were their eyes on him? Were they watching him now?

René flinched as someone walked by. He gripped the gun at his side, swallowing hard.

Grutas’s voice continued to worm in his ear.

“So to make it up to me, I want you to take some pictures and stay close to Popil. _Don’t fuck up again_.”

There was a loud clatter and the call cut out. The officer stood alone in the booth with the line droning in his ear and a hand on his gun.

When nothing happened, René hung up the receiver and sighed aloud.

There were clusters of locals on the street, watching the smoke and sharing their theories. They had interviewed shopkeepers and residents all morning, and usually would be sick of hearing their chatter. Right now, they were his protection. Grutas couldn’t get him with so many witnesses.

He found Popil leaned up against his car, transfixed by the smoking rubble.

“Sorry for the delay. The lines at the station were busy…”

Popil didn’t look at him. His thoughts swirled on the surface, suspicion and awe and fury all together.

“Are you alright, Inspector?”

He didn’t know what else to do, so René joined him. He hadn’t thought about it before, but was there a reason why hadn’t he seen the professor around? Why did Grutas suddenly want information on him?

René had thought the shabby, subdued man shuffling into their auditorium to be wholly unremarkable. He hid behind the frames of his glasses and refused to greet the officers and attendees before beginning. During the lecture he was grave and steady, all passion deadened. René remembered how haunted the professor looked when Popil brought him to the crime scene and how he was as pale as the bodies when they left.

René tapped his foot, impatient. “Should… should I call on the professor? See what he thinks of this?” Better to have his two targets together. Less work, less room for mistakes.

Popil’s brow twitched, almost a frown. “The professor?”

“Monsieur Graham.”

Popil shook his head. “This kind of crime isn’t his specialty. Besides, I have been advised to leave Monsieur Graham out of active investigations.”

René licked his lips, “He specializes in…” he scrambled for the term, “behavioral evidence, yes? Arsons, murderers, hitmen. Does it matter the kind of criminal?”

Brow furrowed, his gaze drifted up to follow the trail of smoke.

René laughed nervously, “We have enough to find Vladis Grutas, to be sure.”

Popil pushed off the car and ambled toward the warehouse. There were still a few investigators lingering. They were systematically searching the rubble. That’s how they found the two bodies buried within.

He stood over the dried blood where one had been killed just outside the doors of the building. The body had been half burned, but it was clear he had died quickly after his throat was slashed. Shot in the shoulder, blunt force head wound, then a quick death. Almost merciful. Why?

This kill was a means to an end. Same with the two on the boat. Quick kills, quiet.

Popil startled René when he broke the silence.

“What kind of killer am I?” He muttered at the ground, “What kind of man?”

“Inspector?”

Popil stormed back to the car and threw himself inside. “Get in, René.”

René rushed to comply. He barely had the door closed before Popil peeled off toward Paris.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one is coming soon! Thanks for reading as always.
> 
> Much love,  
> Nut


	15. Let It Last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another post after only a week!? What is happening!? Haha after that plot heavy chapter last week, I thought you might like some.... of.... this! Here you go! Just a quickie.

Will blinked at the pale blue morning coming in the open window. On Hannibal’s easel was the poppy bloom where he placed it the night before. Will recalled how Hannibal’s fingers lingered on the petals with a thread of melancholy. As if beauty and permanence could never exist together, only in a dream.

Even if it were a dream… feeling Hannibal shift behind him with an arm tight around his waist, Will wished this moment would last. When he shut his eyes, when time marched on, Will wished he could keep this moment close.

Hannibal exhaled heavily with his nose pressed against Will’s nape. Will pet Hannibal’s hand absently.

“You’re awake?”

Hannibal nodded before mouthing at Will’s neck. The reaction was instant. Will stayed perfectly still, but he couldn’t hide the warmth rising between them.

Hannibal pressed close to reveal just how awake he was, and Will wondered if he himself had been like this as a young man. Had he ever been this... Hannibal licked the shell of his ear as he spread a hand on Will’s stomach.

Hannibal rolled his hips against the cleft of Will’s ass and that woke him with shock more than anything else. Will flushed up his neck and turned into the pillow with a groan. Sensing a rejection, Hannibal eased back until his touch was barely there, just enough to stir their heat beneath the sheets.

Will looked over his shoulder instantly, searching, reaching back to bring Hannibal’s face close. They shared lazy, deep kisses. For a moment Will thought he would drift off again.

He felt Hannibal smile against him before he pulled Will’s shoulder and rolled him onto his back. Hannibal held himself above, taking in the sight of Will flushed and groggy.

Hannibal kissed him once before rising. He replaced the sheet to sit briefly at the edge and brush through Will’s hair. He dragged a knuckle along Will’s cheek.

“It’s early still. Sleep, Will.”

The words were a spell, and Will was sinking soon after. He curled to face the window, hugging Hannibal’s pillow to his face. He felt Hannibal leave him with another passing touch. His movements in the kitchen and sounds of him by the window floated somewhere in Will’s fragmented dreams.

The heat of the waking day was what woke him next. Beams of sunlight were slipping in and casting patterns on the floor. The muted blue glow from the kitchen was almost tangible in the room, a cloud of color and light. Hannibal was seated at the window. The unfinished oil painting of the street scene had been set to the side untouched. The easel now hosted a smaller, blank canvas.

Hannibal was working on a sketchpad with singular focus. When he met Will’s stare, he froze. He lifted his hand cautiously, as if to capture a bird before it startled.

“Stay,” he asked. “Just there.”

With a huff, Will settled. His gaze wandered. He noticed Hannibal’s bare feet on the ornate rug and suppressed a chuckle.

“No, Will. Look at me.”

Will flicked his eyes up and Hannibal stayed with him a moment before diligently returning to task.

Was this what their bloodborne time was for? To collect these serene, transient moments before the plunge? Guilt gripped him hard at the thought of Kolnas going free. It had been on impulse, yet Will couldn’t find true regret in his decision. Just as he had secrets from Hannibal, Hannibal was hard at work crafting a design of his own. Will couldn’t let himself forget that killing those men hadn’t been part of their original plan. Hannibal had orchestrated that scene himself and planted Will on the stage.

Yet, this man before him had changed. Something had unwound in Hannibal’s gait, Will noticed even the night before. There were no shadows of the past swirling in the depths of Hannibal’s eyes, no vengeful thirst. Just Hannibal. Just the two of them in this rare, shrinking gap in time.

“Will?”

His gaze had fallen, he realized. Rather than continue, Hannibal shut the sketchpad and came to him.

“Sorry, can’t get out of my head.”

“I imagine the engine of your mind rarely goes quiet.” Hannibal sat by him once more, leaning down to kiss his temple and nose at Will’s curls. His breath paused with his thoughts, then finally he asked into Will’s hair. “Do you trust me?”

He grumbled, “That’s a loaded question.”

Hannibal laughed as he gently pulled the sheet away. He pushed up the hem of Will’s shirt with a searing hand spread across his back.

Hannibal spoke in his silence. “I trust _you_.” Will glanced back sharply and Hannibal amended, “I trust you to be wholly yourself.” Fingers found the divots of Will’s spine and traced the seam. “Even though you would deny it, there are facets of you that are compelled to hurt me.” He marked the shiver that traveled up Will’s skin, “To rend me limb from limb as a child with an insect. You would watch on smiling as I writhed and fell to ruin.”

He pressed lips to the dip in Will’s back.

“I cherish these parts of you with the same ardor I cherish all of you.”

Will peered from the pillow with burning ears.

He pet Will’s side. Naïve, impulsive words nearly tumbled out of him. Hannibal dissected them carefully before allowing them to pass unchanged.

He knew he could not take them back.

“Will you trust that I wish you no harm? That I would stop if you were to ever ask?”

Will’s brow furrowed in genuine disbelief, and how Hannibal loved him for it. “Would you?”

He nodded once.

Will sagged into the mattress like a puppet whose strings that had been cut. The gears in his head whirled. Hannibal waited, still as stone, for Will’s answer.

Then Will sat up in a flurry and—for a flicker of a moment—Hannibal thought this was his end.

Will clawed him close and kissed him. Hannibal could feel Will’s hesitation and delight in a promise he couldn’t quite believe in.

Hannibal wrapped an arm fully around him and pulled Will onto his lap. The grown man straddled him with a grumpy twist of his mouth, and Hannibal couldn’t help a small laugh. He took Will by the thighs and slotted them closer together. The thin silk of Hannibal’s pants did nothing to hide him, and he almost felt Will’s pulse pick up. Hands on Hannibal’s back, Will ground their hips together. Will’s eyes drifted closed, and Hannibal kissed him with tortured slowness. Only when Will was breathless did he separate them.

Hannibal stood and bid Will wait before disappearing into the kitchen. Will caught his breath sitting on his haunches. Hannibal returned with a tiny jar in hand, and Will’s stomach flopped. Hannibal put it aside on the nightstand without a thought and stood over Will at the bedside.

Hannibal took Will’s face in hand to place feather kisses on his features. Lips brushed his eyelashes, his cheekbones. Strong hands carried the weight of his head. When their lips did meet, Will felt the full force of Hannibal’s devotion. Breath hot between them, he fell eager and open for Hannibal’s plundering kisses. Will pawed at the buttons of Hannibal’s shirt as his spine turned to jelly.

Hannibal took the chance to pull Will’s shirt up and off. He came onto the bed with Will, running a finger under the band of his underwear. If his plan was to mollify Will into complacency, it was working. Will plopped on his back, and together they worked until he was free of clothing.

Air stuck in Will’s throat when Hannibal pushed his knee to the side and knelt between his legs. Will’s heart thumped rabbit fast high in his chest. Hannibal put one hand over it to keep it from leaping free.

“I’ve got you, Will.”

Hannibal wasn’t desperate or overcome as he had been the night before. His cool demeanor was back in full force. His burning touch dragged down Will’s torso until he palmed over Will’s cock. The other soothed over Will’s inner thigh, encouraging his spread. The apprehension that had curbed Will’s arousal ebbed away as Hannibal stroked and teased him with a dry, smooth hand.

Will gripped the sheets beneath him. His fought the urge to jerk his thighs shut. He didn’t realize his eyes had closed until Hannibal’s touch returned slick. Will moaned aloud. He glared at the offending jar but not for long. Hannibal methodically coated his cock in air-chilled lube until his strokes glided with ease.

His voice became panicked—even to his own ears—at the static arousal building too sharp, too quickly. The mattress sank when Hannibal came closer. He cupped Will’s cheek with a clean hand. Will gripped it roughly and hissing into Hannibal’s palm with eyes crushed shut.

Hannibal kissed Will’s strained neck and jaw. He turned Will’s face and kissed his lips so tenderly Will couldn’t help but go slack. He pressed against Will’s perineum with two insistent fingers, wetter than before, projecting his intentions. Then dipped between Will’s cheeks. Another wave of nerves skittered through him, bursting out in shaky sound when Hannibal circled the tight ring of his asshole.

“Breathe.”

Will made a conscious effort and forced his shoulders to relax. He blinked eyes open to Hannibal. His reassurance and obvious desire flooded Will’s senses. A finger slipped inside to the first knuckle, and he saw Hannibal’s breath catch. Curiosity flickered in his eyes when Hannibal traced the rim, stretching and teasing. Will kept breathing in and out, and Hannibal moved with him. One finger became two, scissoring and opening him. It was a bizarre feeling when Hannibal started pumping them deeper, feeling along the inner wall. It was hard not to imagine something thicker. Insane as this was, the thought had Will’s eyes rolling shut.

Then an unexpected jolt of sensation shot through. Will gripped Hannibal with his legs. He squeezed Hannibal’s hand at his cheek to the point of pain.

“It’s alright, Will.”

He panted into Hannibal’s palm, shaking his head.

Hannibal removed his fingers carefully and pried Will’s hand from the sheets. Hannibal kissed the tips of Will’s fingers and stared deliberately into his eyes before tonguing at them. Will flushed hot. Hannibal licked lewdly at his fingers, sucking and mouthing at them before taking two into his mouth. Will’s cock throbbed and he pushed his hips against Hannibal mindlessly.

Without relinquishing Will’s fingers, Hannibal lifted Will by the small of his back and brought him onto his lap. When Will next rolled his hips he felt Hannibal’s erection firm against his thigh. His cock burned through the silk between them.

The spit shining on Hannibal’s lips and the wet sounds of his mouth had the room spinning. Will didn’t need much encouragement when Hannibal guided his saliva slick fingers between his legs. He started as Hannibal had, circling his asshole and testing himself. It was softer than he thought. He swallowed thickly before pushing inside. It was a strange relief to feel himself tighten and release at his own hand. Every curious stretch spread heat in Will’s chest and up his neck. Like an infection, it spread heady and buzzing in his head.

Hannibal pet Will’s hip to his thigh, up and down. Will saw Hannibal’s patient composure shaking at its foundations as he rocked into Will’s hips.

Will’s voice was far away, present only in vibration. Shame and hesitation were scattered on the floor.

“Touch me—Please, Hannibal—”

Hannibal took his cock in hand and pumped firmly. Will pushed his head against the mattress with a pained moan. Hannibal eased immediately, stroking and twisting with a tamer touch. Will didn’t know which was worse. He fought back the grunts and hums that eked out with every tug. Hannibal bowed over to kiss him thoroughly and consume the sounds raw from his throat. Precum overflowed onto Hannibal’s hand, dripping on Will’s stomach, but it wasn’t what he wanted. More, he wanted—

The weight against his balls when he reached deeper inside himself was almost too much. He followed the shadow of Hannibal’s touch until he found that electrifying knot of nerves and shocked out another dribble of cum. His free hand gripped Hannibal’s shoulder with nails, and his voice broke in a shout. Hannibal murmured encouragements into his ear, biting and sucking at Will’s neck, his chest. Will curved his fingers to rub and define the edges of that fraying overload of sensation.

Lost in the exploration, in the fleeting lips on his skin and the hands that contained him, he came. He held Hannibal tight between his thighs until he couldn’t. When he fell back but there was no mattress beneath him. He arched into a sightless void, held by scalding hands that carved and supped from him, milking him past the point of orgasm. Will twitched and jerked with weak cries and incoherent begging.

When it did fade, he found Hannibal’s eyes first. The mahogany there was interwoven with vivid and ravenous red. He watched distantly as Hannibal bent over him to lap at his stomach. Hannibal opened his mouth and threatened Will’s skin with teeth. He knew Hannibal would take a chunk of out him if he could. But instead Hannibal licked an obscene stripe up through the spatter of cum.

Hannibal sat straight, cleaning his lips with eyes that said he was savoring.

There was a smear of red at Hannibal’s shoulder where Will clawed him. Will reached for him with blood under his nails, and Hannibal came willingly. They collapsed together. Hannibal dug his arms around Will in a tight embrace.

They stayed that way, watching shadows move across the floor and listening to the world slowly come to life.

Will could hear the sharp staccato of the clock in the kitchen. He shut his ears to it and settled instead on the tempered thump of Hannibal’s heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, writing smut is still pretty new to me. But it gets easier and easier every time!
> 
> As always, thanks for reading! See you soon!


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